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A 

YEAR'S RESIDENCE 

I.V THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; 



Treating of the face of the country, the climate, th£ 
soil, the products, the mode of cultivating the lakd, 
the prices of land, of labour, of food, of raiment j of 
i he expenses of house-keeping and of the usual man- 
sfr of living ] of the manners and customs of the peo- 
n.v:; and, of the institutions of the country, cirir.^ 

i^OLITJCAL AND RELIGIOUS. 

IX THREE PARTS. 



BY WILLI AM ^COBBETT. 



PART I. 

ONTAINING, I. A DESCRIPTION OF THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY, 
THE CLIMATE, THE SEASONS AND THE SOIL J THE FACTS 
BEING TAKEN FROM THE AUTHOR'S DAILY NOTES DURING A 
WHOLE YEAR. II. AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR's AGRICUL- 
TURAL EXPERIMENTS IN THE CULTIVATION OF THE RUTA 
BAGA, OR RUSSIA; OR SWEDISH, TURNIP, WHICH AFFORD 
FROOF OF WHAT THE CLIMATE AND SOIL ARE. ^ 

.is- 



V^ 



1S67 



NEW-YORK: 



'<>'ofWashvn^' 



PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY CLAYTON AND KINGSLAND, 

No. 15 Cedar-Street, 



:S0UTHER^' DISTRICT OF NEW- YORK, ss. 

BE IT REMEMBERED, That- on the sixth day of 
(L. S.) June, in the forty-second year of the Independence of 
the United States of America; William Cobbett, of 
the said District, has deposited in this office the title of a book, 
the right whereof he claims as proprietor in the words follow- 
ing, to wit : 

" A Year's Residence in the Uniled States of .America ; frealing 
of the Face of the Country, the Soil, the Products, the Mode of 
Cultivating the Land, the Prices of Land, of Labour, of Food, 
of Raiment ; of the Expenses of House-keeping, and of the usual 
manner of Living ; of the Manners and Customs of the People : 
and, of the Institutions of the Country, Civil, PoUlical and Re- 
ligious. In three Parts. By William Cobbett. Part I. Con' 
Gaining, I. A Description of the Face of the Country, the Climate, 
the Seasons and the Soil, the Facts being taken from the Author's 
daily Notes during a ivhole Year. II. .In Account of the Author s 
Agricultural Experiments in the Cultivation of the Ruta Baga, 
or Russia, or Siocdish, Turnip, which afford proof of uiiat the 
Climate and Soil are." 

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United 
States, entitled " An Act for the encouragement of Learning, 
by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to tlie 
authors and proprietors of sucli copies, during the time therein 
mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled '• an Act, supple- 
mentary to an Act, entitled an Act for the f ncouragement of 
Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books 
to the authors and pro])rietors of such copies, during the times 
therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the 
arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other 
prints." 

JAMES DILL, 
Clerk of the Southern District of New-York 



CONTENTS OF PART I. 



Page 
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE THREE PARTS, - - 5 
CHAP. I. Description of the Situation and Extent of 
Long-Island, and also of the Face of the 
Country, and an Account of the Climate, 

Seasons and Soil, * * 

CHAP. II. RuTA Baga. Culture, Mode of Preserving, 
and Uses of the Ruta Baga, sometimes called 
the Russia, and sometimes the Swedish, Tur- 
nip, - - ,...-- 70 



GENERAL PREFACE 

TO THE 

THREE PARTS. 



i. Throughout the whole of this work it is my 
intention to numher the paragraphs, from one to the 
end of each Part. This renders the business of 
reference more easy than it can be rendered by any 
mode in my power to tind out ; and, easy reference 
saves a great deal of paper and print, and also, 
which ought to be more valuable, a great deal of 
time, of which an industrious man has never any to 
spare. To desire the reader to look at paragraph 
such a number of such a part, will frequently, as he 
will find, save him both money and labour ; for 
without this power of reference, the paragraph, or 
the substance of it, would demand being repeated 
in the place, where the reference would be point- 
ed out to him. 

2. Amongst all the publications, which I have 
yet seen on the subject of the United States, as a 
countr}^ to live in, and especially to farm in, I have 
never yet observed one that conveyed to English- 
men any thing like a correct notion of the matter. 
Some writers of Travels in these States have jolted 
along in the stages from place to place, have loung- 
ed away their time with the idle part of their own 
countrymen, and, taking every thing ditlerent from 
what they left at home for the effect of ignorance, 
and every thing .not servile to be the effect of in- 
solence, have described the country as unfit for a 
civilized being to reside in. Others, coaling with 



GENERAL FB.EFACE 

a resolution to find every thing better than at home. 
and weakly deeming themselves pledged to find 
climate, soil and all blessed by the effects of free- 
dom, have painted the country as a perfect para- 
dise ; they have seen nothing but blooming or- 
chards and smiling faces. 

3. The account, which I shall give, shall be that 
of actual experience. I will say what I kao-so and 
what I have seen and what I have done. I mean to 
give an account of a year's residence, ten months 
in this Island and two months in Pennsylvania, in 
which I went back to the first ridge of mountains. 
In the course of the three parts, of which this 
work will consist, each part making a small vo- 
lume, every thing which appears to me useful to 
persons intending to come to this country shall be 
communicated ; but more especially that which 
may be useful io farmers ; because, as to such mat- 
ters, I have ample experience. Indeed, this is the 
nnain thing ; for this is really and truly a country of 
farmers. Here Governors, Legislators, Presidents, 

all are farmers. A farmer here is not the poor de- 
pendent wretch that a Yeomanry-Cavalry man is, 
or that a Treason-Jury man is. A farmer here de- 
pends on nobody but himself lAud on his own proper 
means ; and, if he be not at his ease, and even rich, 
it must be his own fault. 

4. To make men clearly see what they may do 
in any situation of life, one of the best modes, if not 
the very best is, to give them, in detail, an account 
of what one has done one's-self in that same situa- 
tion, and how and when and where-one has done it. 
This, as far as relates to farming, and house keep- 
ing in the country, is the mode that 1 shall pursue. 

1 shall give an account of what I have done ; and, 
wliile this will convince any good farmer, or any 
man of tolerable means, that he may, if he will, do 
the same, it will give him an idea of the climate, 
.soil, crops, &c. a thousand times more neat and 



TO THE THREE PARTS. 1 

.oorrect ihan could be conveyed to his mind by any 
general description unaccompanied with actual ex- 
perimental accounts. 

5. As the expressing of this intention may, per- 
haps, suggest to the reader to ask, how it is that 
much can be known on the subject of Farming by 
a man, who, for thirty-six out oi Jifty-two years of 
his life has been a Soldier or a Political Writer, 
and who, of course, has spent so large a part of his 
time in garrisons and in great cities, 1 will beg leave 
to satisfy this natural curiosity before-hand, 

6. Early habits and affections seldom quit us 
while we have vigour of mind left. I was brought 
up under a father whose talk was chiefly about his 
garden and his fields, with regard to which he was 
famed for his skill and his exemplary neatness. 
From my very infancy, from the age of six years, 
when I climbed up the side of a steep sand rock, 
and there scooped me out a plot four feet square to 
make me a garden, and the soil for which I carried 
up in the bosom of my little blue smock-frock, or 
hunting shirt, I have never lost one particle of my 
passion for these healthj^ and rational and heart- 
cheering pursuits , in which eveiy day presents some- 
thing new, in which the spirits are never suffered 
to flag, and in which, industry, skill and care are 
sure to meet with their due reward. I have never, 
for any eight months together, during my whole 
life, been without a garden. So sure are we to 
overcome difficulties where the heart and mind 
are bent on the thing to be obtained! 

7. The beautiful plantation of American Trees 
round my house at Botley, the seeds of w^hich 
were sent me, at my request, from Pennsylvania, 
in 1806, and some of which are nov/ nearly forty 
feet high, all sown and planted by m3'self, will, I 

hope, long remain as a specimen of my perseve- 
rance in this way. During my whole life I have 
been a gardener. There is no part of the busi- 



8 GENERAL PREFACE 

ness, which, first or last, I have not performed 
with my own hands. And, as to it^ I owe very 
little to hooks^ except to that of Tull; for I never 
read a good one in my life, except a French book, 
called the Manuel du Jardinier. 

8. As to farming, I was bred at the plough-tail, 
and in the Hop-Gardens of Farnhamin Surrey, my 
native place, and which spot, as it so happened, 
is the neatest in England, and, 1 beheve, in the 
whole world. All there is a garden. The neat 
culture of the hop extends its influence to the 
fields round about. Hedges cut with sheers and 
every other mark of skill and care strike the eye 
at Farnham, and become fainter and fainter as you 
go from it in every direction. I have had, be- 
sides, great experience in farming for several years 
of late; for, one man will gain more knowledge in 
a year than another will in a life. It is the taste 
for the thing that really gives the knowledge. 

9. To this taste, produced in me by a desire 
to imitate a father, whom 1 ardently loved, and to 
whose every word I listened with admiration, I 
owe no small part of my happiness, for a greater 
portion of which very few men ever had to be 
grateful to God. These pursuits, innocent in 
themselves, instructive in their very nature, and 
always tending to preserve health, have been a 
constant, a never-failing source, of recreation with 
me ; and, which I count amongst the greatest of 
their benefits and blessings, they have always, in 
my house, supplied the place of the card-table, 
the dice-box, the chess-board and the lounging 
bottle. Time never hangs on the hands of him, 
who delights in these pursuits, and who has books 
on the subject to read. Even when shut up with- 
in the walls of a prison for having complained that 
Enghshmen had been flogged in the heart of Eng- 
land under a guard of German Bayonets and Sf?- 
bres ; even then, I found in these pursuits a 



TO THE THREE PARTS. 9 

source of pleasure inexhaustible. To that of the 
whole of our English books on these matters I 
then added the reading of all the valuable French 
Books ; and I then, for the first time, read that 
Book of all Books on Husbandry, the work of 
Jethro TuLt, to the principles of whom 1 owe 
more than to all my other reading and all my ex- 
perience, and of which principles I hope to find 
time to give a sketch, at least, in some future Part 
of this work. 

10. I wish it to be observed, that, in any thing 
which I may say, during the course of this work, 
though truth will compel me to state facts, which 
will, doubtless, tend to induce farmers to leave 
England for America, 1 advise no one so to do. 
I shall set down in writing nothing but what is 
strictly true. I myself am bound to England for 
life. My notions of allegiance to country ; my 
great and anxious desire to assist in the restoration 
of her freedom and happiness ; my opinion that I 
possess, in some small degree, at any rate, the 
power to render such assistance ; and, above all 
other considerations, my unchangeable attachment 
to the people of England, and especially those who 
have so bravely struggled for our rights : these 
bind me to England ; but, I shall leave others to 
judge and to act for themselves. 



Wm. cobbett. 



North Hempstead^ Long 
bland, n April, 1818. 



YEAR'S RESIDENCE, kc 



CHAP. I. 

Description of the Situation, and Exte7it of Long 
Island, and also of the Face of the Country, and 
an account of the Climate, Seaso7is and Soil. 

11. LONG ISLAND is situated in what may be 
called the middle climate of that part of the United 
States, which, coast wise, extends from Boston to 
the Bay of Chesapeake. Farther to the South 
the cultivation is chieiiy by negroes, and farther 
to the north than Boston is too cold and arid to be 
worth much notice, though, doubtless, there are 
to be found in those parts good spots of land and 
good farmers. Boston is about 200 miles to the 
North of me, and the Bay of Chesapeake about 
the same distance to the South. In speaking of 
the climate and seasons, therefore, an allowance 
must be made, of hotter or colder, earlier or later, 
in a degree proportioned to those distances ; be- 
cause I can speak positiveW only of the very spot, 
at which I have resided. But, this is a matter of 
very little consequence ; seeing that every part 
has its seasons first or last. All the difference is, 
that, in some parts of the immense space of which 
I have spoken, there is a little more summer than 
in other parts. The same crops will, 1 believe, 
srow in them all. 



12 CLiMATi:, SEASONS, &0C. Fart L 

12. The situation of Long Island is this : it is 
about 130 miles long, and, on an average about 
8 miles broad. It extends in length from the Buy 
of the City of New-York to within a short distance 
of the State of Rhode Island. One side of it is 
against the sea, the other side looks across an arm 
of the sea into a part of the State of New-York 
(to which Long Island belongs) and into a part of 
the State of Connecticut. At the end nearest the 
city of New-York it is separated from the site of 
that city by a channel so narrow as to be crossed 
by a Steam-Boat in a few minutes ; and this boat, 
with another near it, impelled by a team of horses, 
which work in the boat, form the mode of con- 
veyance from the Island to the city, for horses, 
wagons, and every thing else. 

13. The Island is divided into three counties. 
King's county, Queen's county, and the county of 
Suffolk. King's county takes off the end next 
New-York city for about 13 miles up the Island ; 
Queen's county cuts off another slice about thirty 
miles further up ; and all the rest is the county of 
Sufiolk. These counties are divided into town- 
ships. And, the municipal government of Justices 
of the Peace, Sheriffs, Constables, &c. is in nearly 
the English way, with such differences as I shall no- 
tice in the Second Part of this work. 

14. There is a ridge of hills which runs from one 
end of the Island to the other. The two sides are 
j3ats, or, rather, very easy and imperceptible 
irlopes towards the sea. There are no rivers, or 
rivulets, except here and there a little run into a 
bottom which lets in the sea water for a mile or two 
us it were to meet the springs. Dryness is, there- 
fore, a great characteristic of this Island. At the 
place where I live, which is in Queen's county, 
and very nearly the middle of the Island, cross- 
wise, we have no water, except in a well seventy 
feet deep, and from the clouds ; yet, we never ex- 



Chap. I. CLIMATE SEASONS, kc, 13 

perience a want of water. A large rain water cis- 
tern to take the run from the house, and a duck 
pond to take that from the barn, afford an ample 
supply ; and, I can truly say, that, as to the article 
of water, I never was situated to please me so well 
in my life before. The rains come about once in 
fifteen daj^s ; they come in abundance for about 
twenty-four hours ; and then all is fair and all is 
dry again immediately. Yet here and there, espe- 
cially on the hills^ there are ponds, as they call them 
here ; but, in England, they would be called lakes 
from their extent as well as from their depth. 
These, with the various trees which surround them, 
are very beautiful indeed. 

15. The farms are so many plots originally 
scooped out of woods ; though in King's and Queen's 
counties the land is generally pretty much depriv- 
ed of the woods, which, as in every other part of 
America that I have seen, are beautiful beyond all 
description. The Walnut of two or three sorts ; 
the Plane ; the Hickory, Chestnut, Tulip Tree, Ce- 
dar, Sassafras, Wild Cherry (sometimes 60 feet 
high) ; more than fifty sorts of Oaks ; and many 
other trees, but especially the Flowering Locust, 
or Accasia, which, in my opinion, surpasses all 
other trees, and some of which, in this Island, are 
of a very great height and girt. The orchards 
constitute a feature of great beauty. Every firm 
has its orchard, and, in general, of cherries as well 
as of apples and pears. Of the cultivation and crops 
of these, 1 shall speak in another Part of the work. 

16. There is one great draw-back to all these 
beauties; namely, the /ences; and, indeed, there is 
another with us South of England people ; namel}'-, 
the general (for there are many exceptions) slo- 
venliness about the homesteads and particularly 
about the dzivellings of labourers. Mr. Birkbeck 
complains of this ; and, indeed, what a contrast 
with the homesteads and cottages, which he left be- 

2 



14 CLIMATE, SEASONS, Ilc. Part I. 

hind him near that exemplary spot, Guildford in 
Surrey! Both blots are, howe^'cr, easily accounted 
for. 

17. The fences are of post and rail. This arose, 
in the first place, from the abundance of timber that 
men knew not how to dispose of. It is now become 
an affair of great expense in the populous parts of 
the country ; and, that it might, with great advan- 
tage and perfect ease, be got rid of, I shall clearly 
show in another part of my work. 

18. The dzvellings and gardens diud little out hou- 
ses of labourers, which form so striking a feature 
of beauty in England, and espepially in Kent, Sus- 
sex, Surrey, and Hampshire, and which constitute 
a sort of fairy-land, when compared with those of 
the labourers in France, are what I, for my part, 
most feel the want of seeing upon Long Island. In- 
■*tead of the neat and warm little cottage, the yard, 
row-stall, pig-sty, hen-house, all in miniature, and 
the garden, nicely laid out and the paths bordered 
with flowers, while the cottage door is crowned 
with a garland of roses or honey-suckle : instead 
of these, we here see the labourer content with a 
.shell of boards, while all around him lies as barren 
^s the sea-beach ; though the natural earth would 
iend T.eions, the finest in the world, creeping round 
bis door, and though there is no English shrub, or 
Power, which will not grow and flourish here. This 
want of attention in such cases is hereditary from 
ihe first settlers. They found land so plenty, that 
I hey treated sma^l spots with contempt. Besides, 
ihe exampU of neatness was wanting. There was 
no gentlemen's garvlens, kept as clean as drawing- 
rooms with grass as even as a carpet. P^rora en- 
deavouring to imitate perfection men arrive at me- 
diocrity ; and, those who never have seen, or 
heardof perfection, in these matters, will naturally 
be sloveas. 

19. Yet, notwithstanding these hlots^ as \ deem 



Chap. I. ^?L1MATK^ SEASONS, &C. i5 

them, the face of the country, in summer, is very 
fine. From December to May, there is not a speck 
of green. No green grass and turnips and wheat 
and rye and rape, as in England. The frost comes 
and sweeps all vegetation and verdant existence 
from the face of the earth. The wheat and rye 
live ; but, they lose all their verdure. Yet the 
state of things in June, is, as to crops, and fruits, 
much about what it is in England ; fot*, when things 
do begin to grow, they grow indeed ; and the gen- 
eral harvest £ot grain (what we call corn) is a full 
month earlier than in the South of England ! 

20. Having now given a sketch of the face of 
the country, it only remains for me to speak in 
this place of the Climate and Seasons, because I 
shall sufficiently describe the Soil, when I come 
to treat of my own actual experience of it. I do 
not like, in these cases, general descriptions. In- 
deed, they must be very imperfect ; and, there- 
fore, I will just give a copy of a journal, kept by 
myself, from the 5th of May, 1817, to the 20th 
of April, 1818. This, it appears to me is the best 
way of proceeding ; for, then, there can be no de- 
ception J and, therefore, I insert it as follows : 

1817, 

May 5. Landed at New-York. 

6. Went over to Long Island. Very fine Azy, 
warm as May in England. The Peach 
trees going out of bloom. Plum trees in 
full bloom. 

7. Cold, sharp, East wind, just like that 
which makes the old debauchees in Lon- 
don shiver and shake. 

8. A little frost in the night, and a warm day. 
0. Cold in the shade and hot in the sun. 

iO. The weather has been dry for some time. 
The grass is only beginning to grow a 
litUe. 



16 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part f. 

May 1 1 . Heavy Thunder and rain in the night, 
and all this day. 

12. Rain till noon. Then warm and beautiful. 

13. Warm, fine day. Saw, in a garden, let- 
tuces, onions, carrots and parsnips, just 
come up out of the ground. 

14. Sharp, drying wind. People travel with 
great coats to be guarded against the 
morning and evening air. 

15. Warm and fair. The formers are begin- 
ning to plant their Indian corn. 

16. Dry wind. Warm in the sun. Cherry 
trees begin to come out in bloom. The 
Oaks show no green yet. The sas- 
safras in flower ; or whatever else it is 
called. It resembles the elder flower 
a good deal. 

17. Dry wind. Warmer than yesterday. An 
English April morning, that is to say, a 
sharp April morning, and a June day. 

18. Warm and fine. Grass pushes on. Saw 
some Lucern in a warm spot, 8 inches- 
high. 

19. Rain all day. Grass grows apace. People 
plant potatoes. 

30. Fine and warm. A good cow sells, with 
a calf by her side, for 45 dollars. Steer 
two years old 20 dollars. A working ox, 
five years old, 40 dollars. 

21. Fine and warm day ; but the morning 
and evening coldish. The cherry trees 
in full bloom, and the pear trees nearly 
the same. Oats, sown in April, up, and 
look extremely fine. 

22. Fine and warm. — Apple trees fast com- 
ing into bloom. Oak buds breaking. 

23. Fine and warm. — Things grow away. — 
Saw kidney beans up and looking pretty 

^ft^ell. Saw some beets coming up. Not 



Chap. L CLIMATE, SEASONS, Lc. 17 

a sprig of Parsley to be had for love or 
money. What improvidence ! Saw some 
cabbage plants up and in the fourth leaf. 
May 24, Rain at night and all day to-day. Apple 
trees in full bloom, and cherry bloom 
faUing oif. 

25. Fine and warm. 

26. Dry coldish wind, but hot sun. The grass 
has pushed on most furiously. 

27. Dry wind. Spudded up acv^rner of ground 
and sowed (in the natural earth) cucumhers 
and melons. Just the time they tell me. 

28. Warm and fair. 

29. Cold wind ; but the sun warm. Nofire^ 
in parlours now, except now-and-then^ 
in the mornings and evenings. 

30. Fine and warm. — Apples have dropped 
their blossoms. And now the grass, the 
wheat, the rye and every thing, which 
has stood the year, or winter through, 
appear to have overtaken their like in 
Old England. 

31. Coldish morning and evening. 

June 1. Fine warm day ; but saw a man, in the 
evening covering something in a garden. 
It was kidney-beans, and he feared a frost! 
To be sure they are very tender things^ 
I have had them nearly killed in Eng- 
land, by Ju?ie frosts. 

2. Rain and warm. — The O-eiks and all the 
trees, except the Flowering Locusts, be- 
gin to look greenish. 

3. Fine and warm. — The Indian corn is 
generally come up ; but looks yellow in 
consequence of the cold nights and little 
frosts. — N. B. I ought here to describe 
to my English Readers what this same 
Indian Corn is. — The Americans call it 
J^oruy by way of eminence, and wheat. 



fS CLIMATE, SEASONS, &-C. Part I» 

rye, barley and oats, which we confound 
under the name of corn^ they conlbt'Dd 
under the name of grain. The Indian 
Corn, in its ripe seed state, consists of 
an ear, which is in the shape of a spruce- 
fir apple. The grains, each of which is 
about the bulk of the largest marrowfat 
pea, are placed all round a stalk, which 
goes up the middle, and this little stalk, 
to which the seeds adhere, is called the 
Corn Coh. Some of these ears (of which 
from 1 to 4 grow upon a plant) are more 
than a foot long ; and I have seen many, 
each of which weighed more than eigh- 
teen ounces^ avoirdupois weight. They are 
long or short, heavy or light, according 
to the land and the culture. I was at a 
Tavern, in the village of North Hemp- 
stead, last fall (of 1817) where I had 
just read, in the Courier, English news- 
paper, of a Noble Lord, who had been 
sent on his travels to France at tenyears 
of age, and who, from his high-blooded 
ignorance of vulgar things, I suppose, 
had swallowed a whole car of corn., which, 
as the news-paper told us, had well-nigh 
choaked the Noble Lord. The Landlord 
bad just been showing me some of his 
fine ears of Corn ; and I took the paper 
out of my pocket, and read the para- 
graph : "What!" said he, "swallow a 
"^ whole ear of corn at once! No wonder 
" that they have swallowed- up poor Old" 
"John Bull's substance." After a hearty 
laugh, we explained to him, that it must 
have been wheat or barleii. Then he 
said, and very justly, that the lord must 
have been a much greater fool than a 
hog is. The plant of the Indian Corn^ 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C» 19 

grows, upon an average, to about eight 
feet high, and sends forth the most beau- 
tiful leaves, resembling the broad leaf of 
the water flag. It is planted in hills, or 
rows, so that the plough can go between 
the standing crop. Its stalks and leaves 
are the best of fodder, if carefully stack- 
ed ; and its grain is good for every thing. 
It is eaten by man and beast in all the 
various shapes of whole corn, meal, 
cracked, and every other way that can 
be imagined. It is tossed down to hogs, 
sheep, cattle, in the whole ear. The 
two former thresh for themselves, and 
the latter eat Cob and all. It is eaten, 
and is a very delicious thing, in its half- 
ripe, or milky state : and these were the 
*' ears of corn,'''' which the Pharisees 
complained of the Disciples for plucking 
off to eat on the Sabbath Day ; for, how 
were they to eat wheat earsy unless after 
the manner of the " Noble Lord" above 
mentioned ? Besides, the Indian Corn is 
a native of Palestine. The French, who 
doubtless, brought it originally from the 
Levant, call it Turkish Corn. Thre Lo- 
custs, that John the Baptist lived on, 
were not (as I used to wonder at whea 
a boy) the noxious vermin that devoured 
the land of Egypt ; but, the bean, which 
comes in the long pods borne by the 
three-thorned Locust tree, and of which 
I have an abundance here. The wild- 
honey was the honey of wild bees ; and 
the hollow trees here contain swarms of 
them. The trees are cut, sometimes, 
in winter, and the part containing the 
swarm, brought and placed near the house-.. 
1 saw this lately in Pennsylvania. 



20 CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. Part I. 

June 4. Fine rain. Began about ten o'clock. 

5. Rain nearly all day. 

6. Fine and warm. Things grow surpris- 
ingly. 

7. Fine and warm. Rather cold at night. 

8. Hot. 

9. Rain all day. The wood green, and so 
beautiful ! The leaves look so fresh and 
delicate ! But the Flowering Locust, on- 
ly begins to show leaf. It will, by-and- 
by, make up, by its beauty, for its shy- 
ness at present. 

10. Fine warm day. The cattle are up to 
their eyes in grass. 

1 1 . Fine warm day. Like the very, very 
finest days, in England in June. 

12. Fine day. And, when I say fine, I mean 
really fine. Not a cloud in the sky. 

13. Fine and hot. About as hot as the hot- 
test of our English July weather in com- 
mon years. Lucern 2 1-2 feet high. 

14. Fine and hot ; but we have always a 
breeze when it is hot, which I did not for- 
merly find in Pennsylvania, This arises, 
I suppose, from our nearness to the sea. 

15. Rain all day. 

16. Fine, beautiful day. Never saw such 
fine weather. Not a morsel of dirt. The 
ground sucks up all. I walk about and 
work in the land in shoes made of Deer 
skin. They are dressed white, like 
breeches-leather. I began to leave off my 
coat to-day, and do not expect to put it on 
again till October. My hat is a white 
chip, with broad brims. Never better 
health. 

37. Fine day. The partridges (miscalled 
quails) begin to sit. The orchard full of 
birds' nests ; and, amongst others, a dove 
is sitting on her eggs in an apple tree. 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C, 31 

June 18. Fine day. — Green peas fit to gather in 
pretty early gardens, though only of the 
common Hotspur sort. — May Duke cher- 
ries begin to be ripe. 

19. Fine day. — But, now comes my alarm ! 
The AIusquitof>s, and, still worse, the 
common horse fly^ which used to plague 
us so in Pennsylvania, and which were 
the only things I ever disliked belonging 
to the climate of America. Musquitoes 
are bred in stagnant water ^ of which here 
is none. Flies are bred in filth, of which 
none shall be near me, as long as I can 
use a shovel and a broom. They will fol- 
low fresh meat and fish. Have neither ; 
or be very careful. I have this day put 
all these precautions in practice; and, 
now let us see the result. 

20. Fine day. — Carrots and Parsnips, sorvn 
on the 3d and 4th instant, all up, and in 
rough leaf! Onions up. The whole gar- 
den green in 18 days from the sowing. 

21. Very hot. — Thunder and heavy Rain at 
night. 

22. Fine day. — May Duke Cherries ripe. 

23. Hot and close. Distant thunder. 

24. Fine day. 

25. Fine day. White heart and Black heart 
cherries getting ripe. 

26. Rain. Planted out cucumbers and me- 
lons. I find I am rather late. 

27. Fine day. 

28. Fine day. Gathered Cherries for drying 
for winter use. 

29. Fine day. 

30. Rain all night. People are planting out 
their cabbage for the winter crop. 

July 1. Fine day. Bought 20 bushels of English 
salt for half a dollar a bushel ! 



22 CLIMATE, SEASONS j&C. fart t. 

July 2. Fine day. 

3. Fine day. 

4. Fine day. Carrots, sown 3d June, 3 inch- 
es high. 

5 Very hot day. JV*o Jlies yet. 

6. Fine hot day. Currants ripe. Oats in 
haw. Rye nearly ripe. Indian Corn 
two feet high. Hay-making nearly done. 

7. Rain and thunder early in the morning. 

8. Fine hot day. Wear no waistcoat now, 
except in the morning and evening. 

9. Fine hot day. Apples to make puddings 
and pies ; hut our house-keeper does not 
know how to make an apple pudding. 
She puts the pieces of apple amongst the 
batter ! She has not read Peter Pindar. 

10. Finehotday. — I Avork in the land morn- 
ing and evening and write in the day, in 
a north room. — The dress is now become 
a very convenient, or, rather, a very lit- 
tle inconvenient, affair. Shoes, trowsers, 
shirt and hat. No plague of dressing and 
undressing ! 

11. Fine hot day in morning, but began to 
grow dark in the afternoon. A sort of 
haze came over. 

12. Very hot day. The common black cher- 
ries, the little red honey-cherries, all 
ripe now, and failing and rotting by the 
thousands of pounds weight. But this 
place which I rent is remarkable for a- 
bundance of cherries. Some early peas, 
sown in the second week in June, ht for 
the table. This is thirty days from the 
time of sowing. — No flies yet ! No Mus- 
quitoes ! 

13. Hot and heavy, like the pleading of a 
Quarter-Sessions lawyer. No breeze to- 
day, which is rarely the case. 



Chap. i. CLIMATE, SEASONS, 3iC. 23 

July 14. Fine day. The Indian Corn four feet 
high. 

15. Fin6 day. We eat Turnips, sown on the 
2d of June. Early cabbages (a gift) sown 
in May. 

16. Fine hot day. Fine young onions, sown 
on the 8th of June. 

17. Fine hot day. Harvest of wheat, rye, 
oats and barley, half done. But, indeed, 
what is it to do, when the weather does 
so much ! 

18. Fi«e hot day. 

19. Rain all day. 

20. Fine hot day and some wind. All dry 
again as completely as if it had not rained 
for a year. 

t1. Fine hot day ; but heavy rain at night. — 
Flies a few. Not more than in England. 
My son John, who has just returned from 
Pennsylvania, says they are as great tor- 
ments there as ever. At a friend's house 
(a farm-house) there, two quarts of flies 
were caught in one window in one day ! I 
do not believe that there are two quarts 
in all my premises. But, then, I cause 
all wash and slops to be carried forty 
yards from the house. I suffer no peel- 
ings or greens or any rubbish to lie near 
the house. I suiter no fresh meat to re- 
main more than one day fresh in the 
house. I proscribe all fish. Do not suf- 
fer a dog to enter the house. Keep all 
pigs at a distance of sixty yards. And 
sweep ail round about once every week 
at least. 

22. Fine hot day. 

23. Fine hot day. Sowed Buckzvheat in a 
j)iece of very poor ground. 



24 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &;c. Part I, 

July 24. Fine hot day. Harvest (for grain) near- 
ly over. The main part of the wheat, &c.. 
is put into Barns, which are very large 
and commodious. Some they put into 
small ricks, or stacks, out in the fields, 
and there they stand, withoid any thatch- 
ing, 'till they are wanted to be taken in 
during the winter, and, sometimes they 
remain out for a whole year. Nothing 
can prove more clearly than this fact the 
great difference between this climate and 
that of England, where, as every body 
knows, such stacks would be mere heaps 
of muck by January, if they were not, 
long and long before that time, carried 
clean oif the farm by the wind. The crop 
is sometimes threshed out in the field by 
the feet of horses, as in the South of 
France. It is sometimes carried into the 
barns'-floor, where three or four horses, 
or oxen, going a-breast tramples out the 
grain as the sheaves, or swarths are 
brought in. And this explains to us the 
liumane precept of Moses, " not to muz- 
zle the ox as he treadeth out the grain,'''* 
which we country people in England can- 
not make out. 1 used to bepuzzled, too, 
in the story of Ruth, to imagine how 
BoAZ could be busy amongst his threshers 
m the height of harvest. — The weather 
is so fine, and the grain so dry, that, when 
the wheat and rye are threshed by the 
flail, the sheaves are barely untied, laid 
upon the floor, receive a few raps, and 
are then tied up, clean threshed, for 
straw, without the order of the straws be- 
ing in the least changed ! The ears and 
butts retain their places in the sheaf, and 
the band that tied the sheaf before ties 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, Lc 25 

it again. Tiie straw is as bright as bur- 
nished gold. Not a speck in it. These 
facts will speak volumes to an English 
farmer, who will see with what ease work 
must be done in such a country. 
July 25. Fine hot day. Early pea, mentioned be- 
fore, harvested, in forty days from the 
sowing. JVot more Jlies than in England. 
26. Fine broiling day. The Indian Corn 
grows away now, and has, each plant, at 
least a tumbler full of water standing in the 
sockets of its leaves, while the sun seems 
as if it would actually burn one. Yet we 
have a breeze ; and, under these fine sha- 
dy Walnuts and Locusts and Oaks, and on 
the fine grass beneath, it is very pleasant. 
Wood-cocks begin to come very thick 
about. 
21, Fine broiler again. Some friends from 
England here to-day. We spent a plea- 
sant day ; drank success to the Debt, and 
destruction to the Borough usurpers, in 
gallons of milk and water. — JVot more flies 
than in England. 

28. Very, very hot. The Thermometer 85 
degrees in the shade : but a breeze. Ne- 
ver slept better in all my life. No cover- 
ing. A sheet under me, and a straw bed. 
And then, so happy to have no clothes to 
put on but shoes and trowsers ! My win- 
dow looks to the East. The moment the 
Aurora appears, I am in the orchard. It 
is impossible for any human being to lead 
a pleasanter life than this. How I pity 
those, who are compelled to endure the 
stench of cities ; but, for those who re- 
main there without being compelled, I 
have no pity. 

29. Still the same degree of heat. I measur- 



g6 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I. 

ed a water-melon runner, which grew 
eighteen inches in the last 48 hours. The 
dews now are equal to showers. I fre- 
quently, in the morning, wash hands, 
face, feet and legs in the dews on the high 
grass. The Indian Corn shoots up now 
so beautifully ! 
July 30. Still melting hot. 
31. Same weather. 
August 1 . Same weather. I take off two shirts a 
day wringing wet. I have a clothes horse 
to hang them on to dry. Drink about 20 
good tumblers of milk and water every 
day. No ailments. Head always clear. 
Go to bed by day light very often. Just 
after the hens go to roost, and rise again 
with them. 

2. Hotter and hotter, I think ; but, in this 
weather we always have our friendly 
breeze. JVot a single Musquito yet. 

3. Cloudy and a little shattering of rain ; but 
not enough to lay the dust. 

4. Fine hot day. 

5. A very little rain. Dried up in a minute. 
Planted cabbages with dust running into 
the holes. 

6. Fine hot day. 

7. Appearances forbode rain. — I have ob- 
served that, when rain is approaching, the 
stones (which are the rock stone of the 
country), with which a piazza adjoining 
the house is paved, ^e^ Tn^et. This wet ap- 
pears, at first, at the top of each round 
j'tone, and, then, by degrees, goes all over 
it. Rain is si(7'e to follow. It has never 
missed ; and, which is very curious, the 
rain lasts exactly as long as the stones 
take to get all over wet before it comes ! 
The stones get dry again before the rain 



Chap. I. CJffltMATE, SEASONS, &C. 2? 

ceases. However, this foreknowledge of 
rain is of little use here ; for, when it 
comes, it is sure to be soon gone ; and to 
be succeeded by a sun, which restores all 
to rights. I wondered, at first, why I 
never saw any barometers in people's 
houses, as almost every farmer has them 
in England. But, I soon found, that they 
would be, if perfectly true, of no use. 
Early Peas ripe. 
Aug. 8. Fine Rain. It comes pouring down. 

9. Rain still, which has now lasted 60 
hours. — Killed a lamb, and, in order to 
keep it fresh, sunk it down into the well, 
— The wind makes the Indian Corn 
bend. 

10. Fine clear hot day. The grass, which 
was brown the day before yesterday, is 
already beautifully green. In one place, 
where there appeared no signs of vegeta- 
tion, the grass is tz<D0 inches high. 

1 1 . Heavy Rains at night. 

12. Hot and close. 

13. Hot and close. 

14. Hot and close. No breezes these three 
days. 

15. Very hot indeed. 80 degrees in a north 
aspect at 9 in the evening. Three wet 
shirts to-day. Obhged to put on a dry 
shirt to goto bed in. 

IG. Very hot indeed. 85 degrees, the ther- 
mometer hanging under the Locust trees 
and swinging about with the breeze. 
The dews are now like heavy showers. 

17. Fine hot day. Very hot. I fight the 
Borough-villains, stripped to my shirt, 
and with nothing on besides, but shoes and 
trowsers. Never ill ; no head-achs ; no 
muddled brains. The milk and water is 



CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. Part 



a great cause of this. I live on Sallad 
other garden vegetables, apple puddings 
and pies, butter, cheese (very good from 
Rhode Island), eggs, and bacon. Resolv- 
ed to have no more fresh meat, 'till cooler 
weather comes. Those who have a mind 
to swallow, or be swallowed by, Jlies may 
eat fresh meat for me. 
Aug. 18. Fine and hot. 

19. Very hot. 

20. Very hot ; but a breeze every day and 

night. Buckwheat, sown 23d July, 9 

inches high, and, poor as the ground was, 
looks very well. 

21. Fine hot day. 

22. Fine hot day. 

23. Fine hot day. I have now got an English 
woman servant, and she makes us famous 
apple puddings. She says she has never 
read Peter Pindar's account of the dia- 
logue between the King and Cottage wo- 
man ; and yet she knows very well how 
to get the apples within side of the paste, 
N. B. No man ought to come here, 
whose wife and daughters cannot make 
puddings and pies. 

24. Fine hot day. 

25. Fine hot day. 

26. Fine hot day. 

27. Fine hot day. Have not seen a cloud for 
many days. 

28. Windy and rather coldish. Put on cotton 
stockings and a waistcoat with sleeves. 
Do not like this weather. 

29. Same weather. Do not like it. 

30. Fine and hot again. Give a great many 
apples to hogs. Got some hazlenuts in 
the wild grounds. Larger than the Eng- 
lish ; and much about the same taste. 



::l 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 29 

Aug. 31. Fine hot day. Prodigious dews. 
Sept. 1. Fine and hot. 

2. Fine and hot. 

3. Famously hot. Fine breezes. Began 
imitating the Disciples, at least, in their 
diet; for, to-day, we began ^'plucking 
the ears of corn'''' in a patch planted in the 
garden on the second of June. But, we, 
in imitation of Pindar's pilgrim, take the 
liberty to hail our Corn. We shall not 
starve now. 

4. Fine and hot. 83 degrees under the Lo- 
cust trees. 

5. Very hot indeed, but fair, with our old 
breeze. 

6. Same weather. 

7. Same weather. 

8. Same weather. 

9. Rather hotter. We, amongst seven of 
us, eat about 25 ears of corn a day. With 
me it wholly supplies the place of bread. 
It is the choicest gift of God to man, in 
the way of food. I remember, that Ar- 
thur Young observes, that the proof of 
a good climate is, that Indian Corn will 
come to perfection in it. Our Corn is 
very fine. I believe, that a wine-glass- 
ful of milk might be squeezed out of one 
ear. No wonder the Disciples were 
tempted to pluck it when they were 
hungry, though it was on the Sabbath 
Day ! 

10. Appearances for Rain ; and, it is time ; 
for my neighbours begin to cry out, and 
our rain-water cistern begins to shrink. 
The well is there, to be sure ; but, 
to pull water up from 70 ieei is 
no joke, while it requires nearly as 
much sweat to get it up as we get water. 



30 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part 1, 

J^ept. 1 1. No Rain ; but cloudy. 83 degrees in the 
shade. 

12. Rain and very hot in the morning. Thun- 
der and heavy rain at night. 

13. Cloudy and cool. Only 65 degrees in 
shade. 

14. Cloudy and cool. 

15. Fair and cool. Made a fire to write by. 
Don't like this weather. 

16. Rain, warm. 

.1 7. Beautiful day. Not very hot. Just like 
a fine day in July in England after a rain. 

18. Same weather. Wear stockings now and 
a waistcoat and neck handkerchief. 

1 9. Same weather. Finished our Indian 
Corn, which, on less than 4 rods, or 
perches of ground, produced 447 ears. 
It was singularly well cultivated. It was 
the long Yellow Corn. Seed given me 
by my excellent neighbour, Mr. John 
Tredwell. 

20. Same weather. 

21. Same weather. 

22. Same weather. 

23. Cloudy and hotter. 

24. Fine Rain all last night and until ten 
o'clock to-day. 

25. Beautiful day. 

26. Same weather. 70 degrees in shade. 
Hot as the hot days in August in England. 

27. Rain all last night. 

28. Very fine and warm. Left off the stock- 
ings again. 

29. Very fine. 70 degrees in shade. 

30. Same weather. 

Oct. 1. Same weather. Fresh meat keeps pret- 
ty well now. 
2. Very fine ; but, there was a little frost 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. 3rl 

this morning, which did not, however, af- 
fect the late sown Kidney Beans, which 
are as tender as the cucumber plant. 
Oct. 3. Cloudy and warm. 

4. Very fine and warm. 70 degrees in 
shade. The apples are very fine. We 
are now cutting them and quinces to dry 
for winter use. My neighbours give me 
quinces. We are also cutting up and 
drying peaches. 

3. Very fine and warm. Dwarf Kidney 
Beans very fine. 

G. Very fine and warm. Cutting Buckwheat. 

7. Very fine and warm. 65 degrees in shade 
at 7 o'clock this morning. — Windy in the 
afternoon. The wind is knocking down 
the fall-pippins for us. One picked up to- 
day weighed 12 1-4 ounces avoirdupois 
weight. The average weight is about 9 
ounces, or, perhaps, 10 ounces. This is 
the finest of all apples. Hardly any core. 
Some none at all. The richness of the 
pine-apple without the roughness. If the 
King could have seen one of these in a 
dumpling ! This is not the Newtown pippin, 
which is sent to England in sucli quanti- 
ties. That is a winter apple. Very fine 
at Christmas ; but fiir inferior to this fall 
pippin, taking them both in their state of 
perfection. It is useless to send the trees 
to England, unless the heat of the sun and 
the rains and dews could be sent along 
with the trees. 

8. Very fine. 68 in shade. 

9. Same weather. 

10. Same weather. 59 degrees in shade. A 
little white frost this morning. It just 
touched the tips of the Kidney Bean 
leaves ; but, not those of the cucumbers 
or melons, which are near fences. 



32 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &;c. Part I. 

Oct. 11. Beautiful day. 61 degrees in shade. 
Have not put on coat yet. Wear thin 
stockings, or socks. Waistcoat with 
sleeves and neck cloth. In New-York 
Market, Kidney Beans and Green Peas, 

12. Beautiful day. 70 degrees in shade. i 

13. Same weather. 

14. Rain. 50 degrees in shade. Like a 
fine, warm June rain in England. 

15. Beautiful day. 56 degrees in shade. 
Here is a month of October ! 

16. Same weather. 51 degrees in shade. 

17. Same weather. But a little warmer in 
the day. A smart frost this morning. 
The Kidney Beans, Cucumber and Melon 
plants, pretty much cut by it. 

18. A little rain in the night. A most beau- 
tiful day. 54 degrees in shade. A June 
day for England. 

1 9. A very rvhite frost this morning. Kidney 
Beans, Cucumbers, Melons, all demolish- 
ed ; but a beautiful day. 56 degrees in 
shade. 

20. Another frost, and just such another day. 
— Threshing Buckwheat in field. 

21. No frost. 58 degrees in shade. 

22. Finest of English June days. 67 degrees 
in shade. 

23. Beautiful day. 70 degrees in shade. 
Ver}'^ few summers in England that have a 
day hotter than this. It is this fine sun 
that makes the fine apples ! 

54. Same weather precisely. Finished Buck- 
wheat threshing and winnowing. The 
men have been away at a horse-race ; 
so that it has laid out in the field, partly 
threshed and partly not, for five days. If 
rain had come, it would have been of no 
consequence. All would have been dry 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, Lc 3S 

again directly afterwards. What a stew 
a man would be in, in England, if he had 
his grain lying about out of doors in this 
way ! The cost of threshing and winnow- 
ing 60 bushels was 7 dollars, 1/. II5. 6d. 
English money, that is to say, 4s. a 
quarter, or 8 Winchester bushels. But, 
then, the carimg was next to nothing. 
Therefore, though the labourers had a 
dollar a day each, the expense, upon the 
whole was not so great as it would have 
been in England. So much does the cli- 
mate do ! 
Oct. 25. Rain. A warm rain, like a fine June 
rain in England. 57 degrees in shade. 
Tiie late frosts have killed or, at least, 
pinched, the leaves of the trees ; 
and they are now red, yellow, russet, 
brown, or of a dying green. Never was 
any thing so beautiful as the bright sun, 
shining through these fine lofty trees up- 
on the gay verdure beneath. 
9G. Rain. Warm. 58 degrees in shade. 
This is the general Indian Corn harvest. 

27. Rain. Warm. 58 degrees in shade. 
Put on coat, black hat and black shoes. 

28. Fine day. 56 degrees in shade. Pulled 
up a Radish that weighed 12 pounds ! I 
say twelve, and measured 2 feet 5 inches 
round. From common English seed. 

29. Very fine indeed. 

30. Very fine and warm. 

31. Very fine. 54 degrees in shad^. Gath- 
ered our last lot of winter apples. 

Nov. 1. Rain all the last night and all this day. 

2. Rain still. 54 degrees in shade. Warm. 
Things grow well. The grass very fine 
and luxuriant. 

3. Very fine indeed. 56 in shade. Were it 



34 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part i. 

not for the colour of the leaves of the 
trees, all would look like June in England. 
Nov. 4. Very, very fine. Never saw such plea- 
sant weather. Di^^ing; Potatoes. 

5. Same weather precisely. 

6. A little cloudy but warm. 

7. Most beautiful weather ! 63 degrees in 
shade. N. B. This is November. 

8. A little cloudy at night fall. 68 degrees 
in shade ; that is to say, English Summer 
heat all but 7 degrees. 

9. Very fine. 

10. Very fine. 

11. Very fine. When I got up this morning, 
I found the thermometer handng on the 
Locust trees, dripping with dew, at 62 de- 
grees. Left off my coat again. 

12. Same weather. 69 degrees in shade. 

13. Beautiful day, but cooler. 

14. Same weather. 50 degrees in shade. 
The high ways and paths as clean as a 
boarded floor ; that is to say, from dirt 
or mud. 

1.5. Gentle rain. 53 in shade. Like a gen- 
tle rain in May in England. 
-16. Gentle rain. Warm. 56 in shade. What 
a November for an Englishman to see ! 
My White Turnips have grown almost the 
whole of their growth in this month. The 
Swedish, planted late, grow surprising 
now, and have a luxuriancy of appear- 
ance exceeding any thing of the kind I 
. ever saw. We have fine loaved lettu- 
ces ; endive, young onions, young radish- 
es, cauliflowers with heads five inches 
over. The rye fields grow beautifully. 
They have been food for cattle for a 
month, or six weeks past. 

17. Cloudy. Warm. 



Chap. t. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. 3b 

Nov. 18. Same weather. 55 degrees in shade. 

19. Frost and the ground pretty hard. 

20. Very fine indeed. Warm. 65 degrees in 
shade. 

2 1 . Same weather. 

22. Cold, damp air, and cloudy. 

23. Smart frost at night. 

24. \ 
25 / 

og* > Same. Warm in the day time. 

27. J 

pq J Same ; but more warm in the day. 

30. Fine warm and beautiful day ; no frost at 
night. 57 degrees in shade. 
Dec. 1. Same weather precisely ; but, we begin 
to fear the setting in of winter, and I am 
very busy in covering up cabbages, man- 
gle wurzle, turnips, beets, carrots, pars- 
nips, parsley, &c. the mode of doing which 
(not less useful in England than here, 
though not so indispensably necessary) 
shall be described when I come to speak 
of the management of these several plants. 
^. Fine warm Rain. 56 in shade. 

Very fair and pleasant, but frost suffi- 
ciently hard to put a stop to our getting 
up and stacking Turnips. Still, howe- 
ver, the cattle and sheep do pretty well 
upon the grass, which is long and dead. 
Fatting oxen we feed with the greens 
of Ruta Baga, with some Corn, (Indian, 
mind) tossed down to them in the ear. 
Sheep (Ewes that had lambs in spring) 
we kill very fat from the grass. JVo 
dirt. What a clean and convenient 
Lsoil! 
9. Thaw. No rain. We get on with our 
work again. 



3.6 CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. Part I. 

Dec. 10. Open mild weather. 

11. Same weather. Very pleasant. 

12. Rain began last night. 

13. Rain all day. 

14. Rain all day. The old Indian remark irf, 
, that the winter does not set in, 'till the 

ponds be full. It is coming, then. 

15. Rain 'till 2 o'clock. We kill mutton now. 
Ewes, brought from Connecticut, and sold 
to me here at two dollars each in July, 
just after shearing. I sell them now alive 
at three dollars each from the grass. Kill- 
ed and sent to market, they leave me the 
loose fat for candles and fetch about 3 
dollars and a quarter besides. 

16. Sharp North West wind. This is the cold 
American Wind. " A North Wester'^'' means 
all that can be imagined of clear in sum- 
mer and cold in winter. I remember 
hearing from that venerable and excellent 
man, Mr. Baron Maseres, a very ele- 
gant eulogium on the Summer North West- 
er in England. This is the only public 
servant that I ever heard of, who refused 
z. prqff'ered augmentation of salary! 

17. A hardish frost. 

18. Open weather again. 

19. Fine mild day; but began freezing at 
night-fall. 

20. Hard frost. 

21. Very sharp indeed. Thermometer down 
to 10 degrees ; that is to say, 22 degrees 
colder than barely freezing. 

22. Same weather. Makes us run, where we 
used to walk in the fall, and to saunter in 
the summer. It is no new thing to me ! 
but it makes our other English people 
shrug up their shoulders. 

23. Frost greatly abated. Stones show for 



Chap, I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. o7 

wet. It will come in spite of the fine, 
serene sky, which we now see. 
Dec. 24. A Thaw. — Servants made a lot of candles 
from mutton and beef fat, reserving the 
coarser parts to make soap. 

25. Rain. Had some English friends. Sur- 
loin of own beef. Spent the evening in 
the light of own candles^ as handsome as 1 
ever saw, and, I think, the very best I 
ever saw. The reason is, that the tal- 
low is fresh, and that it is unmixed with 
grease, v/hich, and staleness, is the cause, 
I believe, of candles running, and plague- 
ing us while we are using them. What 
an- injury is it to the farmers in England, 
that they dare not, in this way, use their 
own produce ! Is it not a mockery to call 
a man./ree, who no more dares turn his 
tallow into candles for his own use, than 
he dares rob upon the high way ? Yet, 
it is only by means of tyranny and extor- 
tion like this, that the hellish system oi' 
Funding and of Seat-Selling can be upheld, 

26. Fine warm day. 52 degrees in shade. 

27. Cold, but little frost. 

28. Same weather. Fair and pleasant. The 
late sharp frost has changed to a complete 
yellow every leaf of some Swedish Tur 
nips (Ruta Baga), left to take their chance ; 
It is a poor chance, I believe 1 

29. Same weather. 

30. Rain all day. 

31. Mild and clear. No frost, 
1818. 

Jan. 1. Same weather. 

2. Same weather. 

3. Heavy Rain. 

4. A frost that makes us jump and skip about 
like larks. Very seasonable for a slirg- 

4 



o8 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part 1. 

gish fellow. Prepared for winter. Patch- 
ed up a boarded building, which was for- 
merly a coach-house ; but, which is not 
so necessary to me, in that capacity, as in 
that of a fowl-house. The neighbours tell 
me, that the poultry will roost out on the 
trees all the winter, which, the weather 
being so dry in winter, is very likely ; 
and, indeed, they musty if they have no 
house, which is almost universally the 
case. However, I mean to give the poor 
things a choice. I have lined the said 
coach-house with Corn Stalks and leaves of 
trees, and have tacked up Cedar boughs 
to hold the lining to the boards, and have 
laid a bed of leaves a foot thick all over the 
floor. I have secured all against dogs, 
and have made ladders for the fowls to go 
in at holes six feet from the ground. I 
have made pig-styes, lined round with Ce- 
dar boughs and well covered. A sheep 
yard, for a score of Ewes to have lambs in 
spring, surrounded with a hedge of cedar 
houghs, and with a shed for the Ewes to 
lie under, if they like. The oxen and 
cow are tied up in a stall. The dogs 
have a place, well covered, and lined 
with corn stalks and leaves. And now, I 
can, without anxiety, sit by the fire, or lie 
In bed, and hear the North- Wester whis- 
tle. 
.'c.n. 5. Frost. Like what we call " nhard frost'" 
in England. 

6. Such another frost at night, but a thaw in 
the middle of the day. 

7. Little frosf. Fine warm day. The sun 
seems loath to quit us. 

8. Same weather. 

9. A harder fro^t, and snow at night. The 



Chap. I. (CLIMATE, SEASONS, &,c. 39 

fozals, which have been peeping at my 
ladders for two or three evenings, and 
partially roosting in their house, made 
their general entry this evening ! They 
are the best judges of what is best for 
them. The turkeys boldly set the wea- 
ther at defiance, and still roost on the top, 
the ridge, of the roof of the house. Their 
feathers prevent their legs from being 
frozen, and so it is with all poultry ; but, 
still, a house must, one would think, be 
better than the open air at this season. 
Jan. 10. Snow, but shppy. I am now at New- 
York on my way to Pennsylvania. N. B. 
This journey into Pennsylvania had, for 
its principal object an appeal to the jus- 
titce of the Legislature of that state for re- 
dress for great loss and injury sustained by 
me, nearly twenty years ago, in conse- 
quence of the tyranny of one M'Kean, 
who was then Chief Justice of that State. 
The appeal has not yet been successful ; 
but, as I confidently expect, that it finally 
will, I shall not, at present, say any thing 
more on the subject. — My journey was 
productive of much and various observa- 
tion, and, I trust, of useful knowledge. 
But, in this place, I shall do little more 
than give an account of the weather ; re- 
serving for the Second Part, accounts of 
prices of land, &c. which will there come 
under their proper heads. 

11. Frost but not hard. Now at New-York 

12. Very sharp frost. Set off for Philadel 
phia. Broke down on the road in New 
Jersey. 

13. Very hard frost still. Found the Dela- 
ware, which divides New-Jersey from 
Pennsylvania, frozen over. Good roads 



40 CLIMATE, SKASox^j &€. Part I. 

now. Arrived at Philadelphia in the 
evening. 
Jan. 14. Same weather. 

15. Same weather. The question eagerly 
put to me by every one in Philadelphia, 
is : *' Don't you think the city greatly 
improved ?" They seem to me to con- 
found augmentatiGn with improvement. — 
It alw-a^'s was a fine city, since 1 first- 
knew it ; and it is very greatly augment- 
ed. It has, I believe, nearly doubled its 
extent and number of houses since the 
year 1799. But, ';fter being, for so long 
a time, familiar with London, every other 
place appears little. After living within 
a fQ\Y hundreds of yards of V/estminster 
Hall and the Abbey Church and the 
Bridge, and looking from my own windows 
into St. James's Park, all other buildings 
- and spots appear mean and insignificant. 
I went to-day to see the house I former- 
ly occupied. How small ! It is always 
thus : the words large and small are car- 
ried about with us in our minds, and we 
forget real dimensions. The idea, siich 
as it teas received^ remains during our ab- 
sence from the object. When 1 returned 
to England, in 1800, after an absence from 
the country parts of it, of sixteen years, 
the trees, the hedges, even the parks 
and woods, seemed so small ! It made 
me laugh to hear little gutters, that I 
could jump over, called Rivers I The 
Thames was but a " Creek /" But, v.hen. 
in about a month after my arrival in Lon- 
don, I went to Farnham, the place of my 
birth, what was my surprise ! Every 
thing was become so pitifnlly small ! I 
' bad to cross, in my post-chaise, the lon<r 



CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. 41 

and dreary heath of Bagshot. Then, at 
the end of it, to mount a hill, called hun- 
gry-hill ; and from that hill I knew that 
1 should look down into the beautiful and 
fertile vale of Farnham. My heart flut- 
tered with impatience, mixed with a sort 
of fear, to see all the scenes of my child- 
hood ; for I had learnt before, the death 
of my father and mother. There is a hill, 
not far from the town, called Crooksbury 
Hill, which rises up out of a flat, in the 
form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch 
flr trees. Here I used to go to take the 
eggs and young ones of crows and mag- 
pies. This hill was a famous object in 
the neighbourhood. It served us as the 
superlative degree of height. " As high 
as Crooksbury HiW meant, with us, the 
utmost degree of height. Therefore, the 
first object that my eyes sought was this 
hill. / covM not believe my eyes ! Lite- 
rally speaking, I, for a moment, thought 
the famous hill removed, and a httle heap 
put in its stead ; for I had seen, in New 
Brunswick, a single rock, or hill of solid 
rock, ten times as big and four or five 
times as high ! The post-boy, going down 
hill and not a bad road, wisked me, in a 
few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the 
garden of which I could see that prodi- 
gious sand hill, where I had begun my 
gardening works. What a nothing ! But 
now came rushing into my mind, all at 
once, my pretty little garden, my little 
blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, 
my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out 
of my hands, and the last kind words and 
the tears of my gentle and tender-hearted 
and affectionate mother I I hastened back 
4* 



42 CLIMATE, SEASO.KS, S:c. Part f, 

into the room. If I had looked a mo- 
ment longer, I should have dropped.— - 
When 1 came to reflect, Ta^hat a change I 
I looked down at my dress. What a 
change ! What scenes I had gone 
through ! How altered my state ! I 
had dined the day before at a Secretary 
of State's, in company with Jifr. Pitt, and 
had been waited on by men in gaudy live- 
ries ! I had had nobody to assist me in 
the world. No teachers of any sort. — 
Nobody to shelter me from the conse- 
quence of bad, and no one to counsel me 
to good, behaviour. I felt proud. The 
distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth all 
became nothing in my eyes ; and, from 
that moment (less than a month after my 
arrival in England) I resolved never to^ 
bend before them. 
:'an. i^. Same weather. Went to see my old Qua- 
ker-friends at Bustleton, and particularly 
my beloved friend James Paul, who is 
ver}^ ill. 

17. Pteturned to Philadelphia. — Little frost 
and a little snow. 

18. \ Moderate frost. Fine clear sky. The 
i 9. f Philadelphians are cleanly, a quality 
20. 1 which they owe chiefly to the Quakers. 
?1.3 But, after being long and recently fa- 
miliar with the towns in Surrey and " 
Hampshire , and especially with Guildford , 
Alton and Southampton, no other towns 
appear clean and neat, not even Bath or 
Sahsbury, which last is much about upon 
a par, in point of cleanhness, with Phila- 
delphia ; and, Salisbury is deemed a very 
cleanly place. Blandford and Dorches- 
ter are clean ; but, I have never yet 
seen any thing like the towns in Surrey 



Chap. i. CLIMATE, SEASONS, (iicc. 4o 

and Hampshire. If a Frenchman, born 
and bred, could be taken up and carried 
bhndfolded to Guildford, I wonder what 
his sensations would be, when he came 
to have the use of his sight ! Every thins; 
near Guildford seems to have received an 
influence from the town. Hedges, gates, 
stiles, gardens, houses inside and out, and 
the dresses of the people. The market 
day atGuildford is a perfect show of clean- 
liness. Not even a carter without a clean 
smock-frock and closely-shaven and clean- 
washed face. Well may Mr. Birkbeck, 
who came from this very spot, think the 
people dirty in the Western Country ! — 
I'll engage he finds more dirt upon the 
necks and faces of one family of his pre- 
sent neighbours, than he left behind him 
upon the skins of all the people in the 
three parishes of Guildford. However, 
he would not have found this to be the^ 
case in Pennsylvania, and especially in 
those parts where the Quakers abound ; 
and, I am told, that, in the New England 
States, the people are as cleanly and as 
neat as they are in England. The sweet- 
est flowers, when they become putrid, 
s'ink the jnost ; and, a nasty woman is 
the nastiest thing in nature. 
Jan. 22. Haid frost. — My business in Pennsylva- 
nia js with the Legislature. It is sitting 
at Rarrishiirgh. Set off to-day by the 
stage. Fine country ; fine barns ; fine 
farms. Must speak particularly of these 
in anotler place. Got to Lancaster. The 
largest inland town in the United States. 
A very clean and good town. No beg- 
garly houses. All looks like ease and 
■plenUh 



^'^ CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. Part I. 

Jan. 23. Harder frost j but not very severe. A- 
bout as cold as the weather was during 
the six-weeks' continuance of the snow, 
in 1814, in England. 

24. The same weather continues. 

25. A sort of half-thaw. Sun warm. Har- 
risburgh is a new town, close on the left 
bank of the River Susquehannah, which 
is not frozen over, but has large quanti- 
ties of ice floating on its waters. All ve- 
getation, and all appearance of green, gone 
away. 

26. Mild weather. Hardly any frost. 

27. Thaw. Warm. Tired to death of the 
Tavern at Harrisburgh, though a very 
good one. The cloth spread three times 
a day. Fish, fowl, meat, cakes, eggs, 
sausages ; all sorts of things in abun- 
dance. Board, lodging, civil but not 
servile waiting on, beer, tea, coffee, cho- 
colate. Price a dollar and a quarter a 
day. Here we meet all together : Sena- 
tors, Judges, Lawyers, Tradesmen, Farm- 
ers and all. I am weary of the ever- 
lasting loads of meat. Weary of being idle. 
How few such days have 1 spent in my 
whole life ! 

28. Thaw and rain. — My business not coming 
on, I went to a country Tavern, hoping 
there to get a room to myself, in which 
to read my English papers, and sit down 
to writing. 1 am now dt M'Mlister^s 
Tavern^ situated at the ibot of the first 
ridge of mountains ; or rather, upon a 
little nook of land, close to the river, 
where the river has found a way through 
a break in the chain of mountains. Great 
enjoyment here. Sit and read and write. 
My mind is again in England. Mrs. 
M'Allister just suits me. Does not pes- 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. 43 

ter me with questions. Does not cram 
me with meat. Lets me eat and drink 
what I like, and when I like, and gives 
mugs of nice milk. I find here, a very 
agreeable and instructive occasional com- 
panion, in Mr. M'Allister the elder. 
Buit, of the various useful information that 
I received from him, I must speak in the 
Second Part of this work, 
•^an. 29. Very hard frost this morning. Change 
very sudden. All about the house a glare 
of ice. 

.30. Not so hard. Icicles on the trees on 
the neighbouring mountains like so many 
millions of sparkling stones, when the sun 
shines, yvhich is all the day. 

31. Same weather. Two farmers of Ly- 
coming county had heard that William 
Cobbett was here. They modestly in- 
troduced themselves. What a contrast 
with the " Yeomanry Cavalry r^ 
Feb. 1. Same weather. About the same as a 
" hard frost" in England, 

2. Same weather, 

3. Snow. 

4. Little snow. Not much frost. This day, 
thirty-three years ago, I enlisted as a sol- 
dier. I always keep the day in recol- 
lection. 

5. Having been to Karrisburgh on the 2d., 
returned to McAllister's to-day in a 
sleigh. The River begins to be frozen 
over. It is about a mile Tn'ide. 

6. Little snow again, and hardish frost. 

7. Now and then a little snow. — Talk with 
some hop -growers. Prodigious crops in 
this neighbourhood ; but, of them in the 
Second Part. What would a Farnham 
man think oi^ thirty himdred weight of hops 



f^LIMATEj SEASONS, &.G. Part I. 

upon four hundred hills, ploughed be- 
tween, and the ground vines fed off' by 
sheep ! This is a very curious and in- 
teresting matter. 
Feb. 8. A real frost. 

9. Sharper. They say that the Thermo- 
meter is down to 10 degrees below nought. 
10. A little milder ; but very cold indeed. — 
The River completely frozen over, and 
sleighs and foot-passengers crossing in all 
directions. 
i 1. Went back again to Harrisburgh. Mild 
frost. 

1 2. Not being able to bear the idea of dancing 
attendance^ came to Lancaster, in order 
to see more of this pretty town. Avery 
tine Tavern (Slaymaker's); room to my- 
self; excellent accommodations. Warm 
fires. Good and clean beds. Civil but 
not servile, landlord. The eating still ii 
more over-done than at Harrisburgh. — f 
Never saw such profusion. I have made 

a bargain with the landlord : he is to give 
me a dish of chocolate a day, instead of 
dinner. — Frost, but mild. 

13. Rain. — A real rain, but rather cold. 

14. A complete day of rain. 

15. A hard frost ; much about like a hard 
frost in the naked parts of Wiltshire.-— 
Mr. HuLME joined me on his way to Phi- 
ladelphia from the city of Washington. 

1 6. A hard frost. — Lancaster is a very pretty 
place. No^ne buildings ; but no mea7i 
ones. Nothing splendid and nothing beg- 
garly. The people of this town seem to 
have had. the prayer of Hagar granted 
them : " Give me, O Lord, neither jooz^er- 
ty nor richest Here are none of those 
poor, wretched habitations, which sicken 



CLFMATE, SEASONS, iiC. 47 

the sight at the outskirts of cities and 
towns in England ; those abodes of the 
poor creatures, who have been reduced 
to beggary by the cruel extortions of the 
rich and powerful. And, this remark ap- 
plies to all the towns of America that I 
have ever seen. This is a fine part of 
America. Big Barns, and modest dwell- 
ing houses. Barns of stone^ a hundred 
feet long and forty wide, with two floors, 
and raised roads to go into them, so that 
the wagons go into the first floor upstairs. 
Below are stables, stalls, pens, and all 
sorts of conveniences. Up-stairs are 
rooms for threshed Corn and Grain ; for 
tackle, for meal, for all sorts of things. 
In the front (South) of the barn is the cat- 
tle yard. These are very fine buildings, 
And then, all about them looks so com- 
fortable, and gives such manifest proofs 
of ease, plenty and happiness ! Such is 
the country of William Penn's settling ! 
It is a curious thing to observe the farm 
houses in this country. They consist, al- 
most without exception, of a considerably 
large and a very neat house, with sash- 
windows, and of a small house, which 
seems to have been tacked on to the large 
one ; and, the proportion they bear to 
each other, in point of dimensions, is as 
nearly as possible, the proportion of size 
between a Cow and her Calf, the latter a 
month old. But, as to the cause, the pro- 
cess has been the opposite of this instance 
of the works of nature ; for it is the large 
house which has grown out of rhe small one. 
The father, or grand-f.ther, while he was 
toiling for his children, lived in the small 
house, constructed chiefly by himself, 



48 . CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I. 

and consisting of rude materials. The 
means, accumulated in the small house, 
enabled a son to rear the large one ; and, 
though, when pride enters the door, the 
small house is sometimes demolished, few 
sons in America have the folly or want of 
feeling to commit such acts of filial in- 
gratitude, and of real self-abasement. 
For, what inheritance so valuable and so 
honourable can a son enjoy as the proof 
of his father's industry and virtue ? The 
progress of wealth and ease and enjoy- 
ment evinced by this regular increase of 
the size of the farmers' dwellings is a 
spectacle, at once, pleasing, in a very 
high degree, in itself, and, in the same 
degree, it speaks the praise of the system 
of government, under which it has taken 
place. What a contrast with the farm- 
houses in England ! There the little farm- 
houses are falhng into ruins, or, are 
actually become cattle-sheds, or, at best, 
cottages, as they are called, to contain a 
miserable labourer, who ought to have 
been a little farmer as his grand-father 
was. Five or six tarms are there iiotv 
levelled into one, in defiance of the law ; 
for, there is a law to prevent it. The 
mrmer has, indeed, -a fine house; but, 
what a life do his labourers lead ! The 
cause of this sad change is to be found in 
The crushing taxes ; and the cause of 
them, in the Borough usurpation, which 
has robbed the people of their best right, 
and, indeed, without which right, they 
can enjoy no other. They talk of the 
augmented populatio7i of England ; and, 
when it suits the purposes of the tyrants, 
they boast of this fact, as they are pleased 



I 



CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. 49 

to call it, as a proof of the fostering na- 
ture of their government; though, just 
now, they are preaching up the vile and 
foolish doctrine of Parson Malthus, who 
thinks, that there are too many people, 
and that they ought (those who labour^ 
at least) to be restrained from breeding so 
fast. But, as to the fact, I do not believe 
it. There can be nothing in the shape of 
proof; for no actual enumeration w^as 
ever taken 'till the j^ear 1 800. We know 
well, that London, Manchester, Bir- 
mingham, Bath, Portsmouth, Plymouth, 
and all Lancashire and Yorkshire aad 
some other counties have got a vast 
increase of miserable beings huddled 
together. But, look at Devonshire, 
Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, 
Hampshire, and other counties. You will 
there see hundreds of thousands of Acres 
of land, where the old marks of the 
plough are visible, but which have not 
been cultivated for, perhaps, half a cen- 
tury. You will there see places, that 
were once considerable towns and villa- 
ges, now having, within their ancient 
limits, nothing but a few cottages, the 
i'arsonage, and a single Farm-house. It 
is a curious and a melancholy sight, where 
an ancient church, with its lofty spire or 
tower, the church sufficient to coftta;jn a 
thousand or two or three thousand of 
people conveniently, now stands surroun- 
ded by a score or half a score of miserable 
mud-houses, with floors of earth and 
covered with thatch ; and this sight 
strikes your eye in all parts of the five 
Western counties of England. Surely 
these churches were not built without the 
5 



,30 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. Part 1. 

existence of a population somewhat pro- 
portionate to their size ! Certainly not ; 
jbr the churches are of various sizes, 
and, we sometimes see them very small 
indeed. Let any man look at the sides 
of the hills in these counties, and also in 
Hampshire, where downs, or open lands, 
prevail. He will there see, not only 
that these hills were formerly cultivated ; 
but, that banks, from distance to distance, 
were made by the spade, in order to 
form little flats for the plough to go with- 
out tumbling the earth down the hill ; 
so that the side of a hill looks, in some 
sort, like the steps of a stairs. Was this 
done without hands, and without moidhs 
to consume the grain raised on the sides 
of these hills ? The Funding and Manu- 
facturing and Commercial and Taxing 
system has, by drawing wealth into great 
masses, drawn men also into great masses. 
London, the Manufacturing Places, Bath 
and other places of dissipation, have, 
indeed, w^onderfuily increased in popula- 
tion. Country seats. Parks, Pleasure 
gardens, have, in alike degree, increased 
in number and extent. And, in just the 
same proportion has been the i ^crease of 
Poor-houses, Mad-houses and Jails. But, 
the people of England, such as Fortescue 
described them, have been swept away 
by the ruthless hand of the Aristocracy, 
who, making their approaches by slow 
degrees, have, at last, got into their grasp 
the substance of the whole country. 
Feb. 17. Frost, not very hard. Went back to Har- 
risburgh. 
18. Same weather. Very fine. Warm in the 
middle of the day. 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. 51 

Feb. 19. Same weather. Quitted Harrisburgh, very 
much displeased ; but, on this subject, I 
shall, it' possible, keep silence, 'till next 
year, and until the People of Pennsylvania 
■have had time to reflect ; to clearly un- 
derstand, my affair ; and, when they 
do understand it, I am not at all afraid of 
receiving justice at their hands, whether 
1 am present or absent. — Slept at Lancas- 
ter. One night more in this very excel- 
lent tavern. 
20. Frost still. Arrived at Philadelphia along 
with my friend Hulme. They are roast- 
in^ an ox on the Delaxmre. The fooleries 
of'^England are copied here, and every 
where in this country, with wonderful 
avidity; and, I wish I could say, that 
some of the vices of our " higher orders, 
as they have the impudence to call them- 
selves, were not also imitated. Howe- 
ver, I look principally at the mass of far- 
mers ; the sensible and happy farmers of 
America. 

21. Thaw and Rain.— The severe weather iS 
over for this year. . 

29 Thaw and Rain. A solid day of ram. 

■^ Little frost at night. Fine market. Fme 
meat of all sorts . As fat mutton as I ever 
saw. How mistaken Mr. Birkbeck is 
about American mutton. 
. i^4. Same weather. Very fair days now. 

25 Went to Bustleton with my old friend, Mr. 
John Morgan. 

26. Returned to Philadelphia. Roads very 
dirty and heavy. .„ , i v, 

07. Cotnplete thaw ; hut, it will be long he- 
fore the frost be out of the ground. 

08. Same weather. Very -sarm. I hate this 
weather. Hot upon my back and melt-- 



o2 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &LC. Palt L 

ing ice under my feet. The people 
(those who have beon hizy) arfe chop- 
ping away with axes the ice, which has 
grown out of the snows and rains, before 
their doors, during the winter. The hogs 
(best of scavengers) are very busy in the 
streets seeking out the bones and bits of 
meat, which have been flung out and fro- 
zen down amidst water and snow, during 
the two foregoing months. I mean in- 
cluding the present month. At New- 
York (and, 1 think, at Philadelphia also) 
they have corporation laws to prevent 
hogs from being in the streets. For 
•:i)hat reason, I know not, except putrid 
meat be pleasant to the smell of the inha- 
bitants. But, Corporations are seldom 
the wisest of law-makers. It is argued, 
that, if there were no hogs in the streets, 
people would not throw out their orts of 
flesh and vegetables. Indeed 1 What 
would they do with those orts, then ? 
Make their hired servants eat them ? 
The very proposition would leave them 
to cook and wash for themselves. Where^ 
then, are they to fling these eifects of su- 
perabundance ? Just before I left New- 
Vork for Philadelphia, I saw a sow very 
comfortably dining upon a full quarter 
part of what appeared to have been a 
Jlne leg of mutton. How many a family 
in England would, if within reach, have 
seized this meat from the sow ! And, are 
the tyrants, who have broiie;litmy indus- 
trious countrymen to that horrid state of 
misery, nevtr to be called to account ? 
Are they alzi^ays to carry it as they now 
do 1 Every object almost, that strikes my 
view, sends my mind and heart back t*? 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, ^LC. 53 

England. In viewing the ease and hap- 
piness of this people, the contrast fills my 
soul with indignation, and makes it more 
and more the object of my life to assist in 
the destruction of the diabolical usurpa- 
tion, which has trampled on king as well 
as people. 
March 1. Rain. Dined with my old friend Se- 
VERNE, an honest Norfolk man, who used 
to carry his milk about the streets, when I 
first knew him, but, who is now a man of 
considerable property, and, like a wise 
man, lives in the same modest house 
where he formerly lived. Excellent 
roastbeef and plum pudding. At his house 
I found an Englishman, and, from Botley 
too ! I had been told of such a man being 
in Philadelphia, and that the man said, 
that he had heard of me, " heard of such a 
gentleman,'''' but " did not hio-w much of 
hlm.^'' This was odd ! I was desirous of 
seeing this man. Mr. Severne got him 
to his house. His name is Vere. I knew 
him the moment 1 saw him ; and, I won- 
dered why it was that he knew so little of 
■me. I found, that he wanted work, and 
that he had been assisted by some society 
in Philadelphia. He said he was lame, 
and he might be a little, perhaps. I 
off'ered him work at once. No : he wanted 
to have the care of a farm ! *' Go," said 
I, " for shame, and ask some farmer for 
*■'• work. You will find ii immediately diud. 
" with good wages. What should the 
*' people in this country see in your face 
'•' to induce them to keep you in idle- 
" ness ? They did not send for you. You 
*' are a young man, and you came from a 
^' country of able labourers. You may be 



.54 CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. Part I. 

*' rich if you will work. This gentlemaa 
" who is nbvv about to cram you with 
*' roast beef and plum pudding came to 
'* this city nearly as poor as you are ; 
"and, I first came to this country in no 
" better plight. Work, and 1 wish you 
" wt^il ; be idle, and you ought to starve." 
He told me, then, that he was a hoop- 
inaher ; and yet, observe, he wanted to 
have the care of a farm ! N. B. If this 
book should ever reach the hands of Mr. 
ilicHARD HuixMAN, my excellent good 
friend of Chilling, 1 beg him to show 
this note to Mr. Nicholas Freemantle, 
of Botley. He will know all about this 
Vere. TellMr. FntEiiANTLEythatthe Spa- 
niels are beautiful, that Wood-cocks 
breed here in abundance ; and tell 
him, above all, that I frequently think 
of him as a pattern of industry in busi- 
ness, of skill and perseverance and good 
humour as a sportsman, and of honesty 
and kindness as a neighbour. Indeed, I 
have pleasure in thinking of all my Bot- 
ley neighbours, except the Parson, who, 
for their sakes, I wish, however, was my 
neighbour now ; for here he might pursue 
his calling very quietly. 

2. Open weather. Went to Bustleton, after 
having seen Messrs. Stevens and Pen- 
drill, and advised them to forward to me 
affidavits of what they knew about Oli- 
ver, the spy of the Boroughmongers. 

3. Frost in the morning. Thaw in the day. 

4. Same weather in the night. Rain all day. 
6. Hard frost. Snow 3 inches deep. 

6. Hard frost. About as cold as a hard frost 
in January in England. 

7. Same weather. 

8. Thaw. Pry and fine. 



Chap. i. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. 5i> 

9. Same weather. Took leave, I fear for 
ever, of my old and kind friend, James 
Paul. His brother and son promise to 
come and see me here. I have pledged 
myself to transplant 10 acres of Indian 
Corn ; and, if! write, in August, and say 
that it is good, Thomas Paul has promis- 
ed that he will come ; for, he thinks that 
the scheme is a mad one. 
10. Same weather. — Mr. Varee, a son-in-law 
of Mr James Paul, brought me yester- 
day^ to another son-in-law's, Mr. Ezra 
TowxsHEND at BiEERY. Hcrc I am 
amongst the thick of the Quakers, whose 
houses and families pleased me so much 
formerly, and which pleasure is all now 
revived. Here all is ease, plenty, and 
cheerfulness. These people are never 
giggling and never in low spirits. Their 
minds, like their dress, are simple and 
strong. Their kindness is shown more 
in acts than in words. Let others say 
what they will, I have uniformly found 
those whom I have intimately known of 
this sect, sincere and upright men ; and, 
I verily believe, that all those charges of 
hypocrisy and craft that we hear against 
Quakers arise from a feeling of e7ivy ; en- 
vy inspired by seeing them possessed of 
Such abundance of all those things, which 
are the fair fruits of care, industry, eco- 
nomy, sobriety, and order, and which are 
justly forbidden to the drunkard, the 
glutton, the prodigal and the lazy. As 
the day of my coming to Mr. Town- 
shend's had been announced before- 
hand, several of the young men, who 
were babies when I used to be there for- 
merly, came to see '• Billy Cobbett," 
of whom they had heard and read go 



ii^ CLIMATE, SEASONS, &G. ParM. 

much. When I saw them and heard 
them, *' What a contrast,'*^ said I to my- 
self, " with the senseless, gaudy, upstart, 
" hectoring, insolent and cruel Yeoman- 
'' ry Cavalry in England, who, while they 
" grind their labourers into the revolt of 
" starvation, gallantly sally forth with 
" their sabres to chop them down at the 
" command of a Secretary of State ; and, 
" who, the next moment, creep and favvo 
" like spaniels before their Boroughmon- 
" ger Landlords !" At Mr. Townsitend's I 
saw a man, in his service, lately from 
Yorkshire, but an Irishman by birth. 
He wished to have an opportunity to see 
me. He had read many of my "little 
books." I shook him by the hand, told him 
he had now got a good house over his 
head and a kind employer, and advised 
him not to move for one year, and to save 
his wages during that year. 
March 11. Same open weather. — I am now at Tren- 
ton, in New-Jersey, waiting for something 
to carry me on towards New-York. — 
Yesterday Mr. Townshend sent me on, 
under an escort of Quakers, to Mr. An- 
thony Taylor's. He was formerly a 
merchant in Philadelphia, and now lives 
in his very pretty country-house on a 
very beautiful farm. He has some as fine 
and fat oxen as we generally see at 
Smithfield market, in London. I think 
they will weigh sixty score each. Fine 
farm yard. Every thing belonging to the 
farm good ; but, what a neglectful garden- 
er ! Saw some white thorns here (brought 
from England), which, if I had wanted 
any proof, would have clearly proved to 
me, that they would, with less care, make 



CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc,. o7 

^s good hedges here as they do at Farn- 
ham, in Surry. But, in another Pa^t, I 
shall give full information upon this head. 
— Here my escort quitted me ; but, 
luckily, Mr. Newbold, who lives at about 
ten miles nearer Trenton than Mr. Taylof 
does, brought me on to his house. He is 
a much better gardener, or, rather, to 
speak the truth, has succeeded a better, 
whose example he has followed in part. 
But, his farm yard and buildings ! This 
was a sight indeed ! Forty head of horn- 
cattle in a yard, enclosed with a stone 
w^all ; and five hundred merino Ewes, 
besides young lambs, in the finest, most 
spacious, best contrived and most sub- 
stantially built sheds 1 ever saw. The 
barn surpassed all that I had seen before. 
His house (large, commodious and hand- 
some) stands about two hundred yards 
from the turnpike road, leading from 
Philadelphia to New-York, looks on and 
over the Delaware, which runs parallel 
with the road, and has, surrounding it, 
and at the back of it, five hundred acres 
of land, level as a lawn, and two feet deep 
m loam, that never requires a water- 
furrow. This was the finest sight that I 
ever saw as to farm buildings and land.— 
I forgot to observe, that I saw, in Mr. 
Taylor's service, another man, recently 
arrived from England. A Yorkshire man. 
He, too, wished to see me. , He had got 
some ofm}^ '■^little books,^^ which, he had 
preserved, and brought out with him. Mr. 
Taylor, was much pleased with him. An 
active, smart man ; and, if he follow my 
advice, to remain a year under one roof, 
and save his wages, he will, in a few 



BB CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part r. 

years, be a rich man. — These men must 
be brutes indeed not to be sensible of the 
great kindness and gentleness and libe- 
ralit}^, with which they are treated. — Mr. 
Taylor came, this morning, to Mr. New- 
bold's, and brought me onto Trenton. — 
1 am at the Stage Tavern, where I have 
just dined upon cold ham, cold veal, 
butter, cheese, and a peach-pye ; nice 
clean room, well furnished, waiter clean 
-and attentive, plenty of milk ; and charge 
a quarter of a dollar ! I thought, that Mrs. 
.loLiNE at Princeton, (as I went on to 
Philadelphia), Mrs. Beuler at Harris- 
burgh, Mr. Slaymaker at Lancaster, and 
Mrs. M'Allister, were low enough in 
all conscience ; but, really, this charge 
of Mrs. Anderson beats all. I have not 
,had the face to pay the waiter a quarter 
of a dollar ; but have given him half a 
dollar, and told him to keep the changer 
He is a Black man. He thanked me. But, 
they never ask for any thing. — But, my 
vehicle is come, and now 1 bid adieu io 
Trenton, which I should have liked bet- 
ter, if I had not seen so many young fel- 
lows lounging about the streets and leaning 
figainst door posts, with quids of tobacco 
m their mouths, or segars stuck between 
their lips, and with dirty hands and faces. 
jVIr. Birkbeck's complaint, on this score, 
is perfectly just. 

Brunswick, JVew -Jersey. — Here ! am after 
a ride of about 30 miles, since two o'clock, 
in what is called a Jersey-wagon, through 
such mud as I never saw before. Up to 
the stock of the wheel ; and yet a pair of 
very little horses have dragged us through 
it in the space of five hours. The best 



Qhap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &-C. 59 

horses and driver and the worst roads I 
ever set my eyes on. This part of Jersey 
is a sad spectacle after leaving the 
brightest of all the bright parts of Penn- 
sylvania. My driver, who is a Tavern- 
keeper himself, would have been a very 
pleasant companion, if he had not drunk 
so much spirits on the road. This is the 
great misfortune of America 1 As we were 
going up a hill very slowly, I could per- 
ceive him looking very hard at my cheek 
for some time. At last, he said : " I am 
*' wondering. Sir, to see yon look ^o fresh 
" and so young, considering what you 
*' have gone through in the world ;" for, 
though I cannot imagine /lott', he had 
learnt who I was. " I'll tell you," said 
I, " how I have contrived the thing. I 
" rise early, go to bed early, eat sparingly, 
" never drink any thing stronger than 
" small beer, shave once a day, and wash 
" my hands and face clean three times a 
*' day at the very least." He said, that 
was too much to think of doing, 
IVJarch 12. Warm apd fair. Like an English /r5^ of 
May day in point of warmth. — I got to 
Elizabeth Town Point through beds of 
mud. Twenty minutes too late for the 
Steam-boat. Have to wait here at the 
Tavern 'till to-morrow. Great mortifica- 
tion. Supped with a Connecticut farmer, 
who was taking on his daughter to Little 
York in Pennsylvania. The rest of his 
family he took on in the fall. He has 
migrated. His reasons were these : He 
has five sons, the eldest 19 years of age, 
and several daughters. Connecticut is 
thiokly settled. He has not the means to 
buy farois for the sons there. He, there- 



60 CLIMATi:, SEASONS, &-C.. Pai't 1. 

fore, goes and gets cheap land in Penn- 
sylvania ; his sons will assist him to clear 
it ; and, thus, they will have a farm each. 
To a man in such circumstances, and 
" born with an axe in one hand and a gun 
in the other," the Western Countries are 
desirable ; but not to English farmers, 
who have great skill in fine cultivation, 
and who can purchase near New-York or 
Philadelphia. This Yankey (the inhabit- 
ants of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Mas- 
sachusetts and New Hampshire, only are 
called Yankeys) was about the age of Sir 
Francis Burdett, and, if he had been 
dressed in the usual clothes of Sir Fran- 
cis, would have passed for him. Features, 
iiair, eyes, height, make, manner, look, 
hasty utterance at times, musical voice, 
frank deportment, pleasant smile. All 
the very fac-similie of him. I had some 
early York Cabbage seed and some Cau- 
Uflower seed in my pocket, which had 
been sent me from London, in a Letter, 
and which had reached me at Harris- 
burgh. I could not help giving him a lit- 
tle of each. 
Alarch 13. Same weather. — A fine open day. Ra- 
ther a cold May-day for England. — Came 
to New-York by the Steam-Boat. Over 
to this Island by another, took a little 
light wagon, that wished me home over 
joads as dry and as smooth as gravel 
walks in an English Bishop's garden in 
the month of July. Great contrast with 
the bottomless muds of New Jersey ! As 
I came along saw those fields of rye, which 
were so green in December, now -white. 
Not a single sprig of green on the face of 
the earth.-— Found that njy mau had 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. 61 

ploughed ten acres of ground, — The frost 
not quite clean out of the ground. It has 
penetrated two feet eight inches. — The 
weather here has been nearly about the 
same as in Pennsylvania ; only less snow, 
and less rain. 
March 14. Open weather. Very fine. — Not quite 
so warm. 

15. Same weather.— Foim^c/wc^ens. — I hear of 
no other in the neighbourhood. This the 
effect of my warm fowl-house. The 
house has been supplied with eggs all the 
winter^ without any interruption. I am 
told, that this has been the case at no 
other house hereabouts. — We have now 
an abundance of eggs. More than a 
large family can consume. We send 
some to market. The fowls, I find, have 
wanted no feeding except during snow, or, 
in the very, very cold days ; and, in those 
very cold days, the\ did not come out of 
their house all the day. A certain proof, 
that they like the warmth. 

IG. Little frost in the morning. Very fine 
day. 

17. Precisely same weather. 

18. Same weather. 

19. Same weather. 

20. Same weather. Opened several pits, in 
which I had preserved all sorts of garden 
plants and roots, and apples. Valaable 
experiments. As useful in England as 
here, though not so absolutely necessary. 
I shall communicate these in another part 
of my work, under the head of Garden- 
ing. 

21. Same weather. The day like a fine May- 
da}^ in England. I am writing without 
fire, and in my waistcoat without coat. 

6 



(52 rr.TMATE, SEASONS, kc. Part i. 

March 22. Rain all last night, and all this day. 

23. Mild and fine. A sow had a litter of pigs 
in the leaves under the trees. Judge of the 
weather by this. The wind blows cold ; 
but, she has drawn together great heaps 
of leaves, and protects her young with 
surprising sagacity and exemplary care 
and fondness. 

24. Same weather. 

25. Still mild and fair. 

26. Very cold wind. We try to get the sow 
and pigs into the buildings. But the pigs 
do not follow, and we cannot, with all 
our temptations of corn and all our caress- 
es, get the sow to move without them 
b}' her side. She must remain 'till they 
choose to travel. How does nature, 
through the conduct of this animal, re- 
proach those mothers, who cast off their 
new-born infants to depend on a hireling's 
breast ! Let every young man, before he 
marry, read, upon this subject, the pret- 
ty poem of Mr. Roscoe, called " the 
Nurse ;" and, let him also read, on the 
same subject, the eloquent, beautiful, 
and soul-affecting passage, in Rousseau's 

27. Fine w\'irm day. Then high wind, rain. 
snow, and hard frost before morning. 

28. Hard frost. Snow 3 inches deep. 

29. Frost in the night ; but, all thawed in the 
day, and very warm. 

30. Frost in night. Fine warm day. 
/<].Fine warm day. — As the zcinicr is now 

gone, let us take a look back at its incon- 
veiiicnces ccmi)aied with those of an 

English IVinier. We have had three 

months of it ; for, if we had a few days 
sharp in December, we have had ma- 



CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C 63 

ny very fine and without Jire in March. 
In England winter really begins in No- 
vember, and does not end 'till mid-March. 
Here we have greater cold ; there four 
times as much we^. I have had my great 
coat on only twice ^ except when sitting 
in a stage travelling. 1 have had gloves 
on no oftener ; for, I do not, like the 
Clerks of the Houses of Boroughmongers, 
write in gloves. I seldom meet a wa- 
goner with gloves or great coat on. It 
is generally so dry. This is the great 
friend of man and beast. Last summer 
I wrote home for nails, to nail my shoes for 
winter. I could find none here. What 
a foolish people not to have shoe-nails ! 
I forgot, that it was likel}^ that the ab- 
sence of shoe-nails argued an absence of 
the want of them. The nails are not 
come ; and I have not wanted them. 
There is no dirt except for about ten days 
at the breaking up of the frost. The dress 
of a labourer does not cost half so much 
as in England. This dryness is singular- 
ly favourable to all animals. They are 
hurt far less by dry cold than by warm 
drip, drip, drip, as it is in England. 
— There has been nothing green in the 
garden, that is to say, above ground, since 
December ; but, we have had, all win- 
ter, and have now, white cabbages, green 
savoys, parsnips, carrots, beets, young 
onions, radishes, white turnips, Swedish 
turnips, and potatoes ; and all these 
in the greatest abundance (except ra- 
dishes, which were a few to try), and 
always at hand at a minute's warning. 
The modes of preserving will be given in 
another part of the work. What can any 



64 , CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I. 

body want more than these things in the 
garden way ? However, it would be ve- 
ry easy to add to the catalogue. Apples, 
quinces, cherries, currants, peaches, dried 
ill the summer^ and excellent for tarts, and 
pies. Apples in their raw state as many 
as we please. My own stock being gone, 
1 have trucked turnips for apples ; and 
shall thus have them, if I please, till ap- 
ples come again on the trees. I give two 
bushels and a half of Swedish Turnips for 
one of Apples ; and, mind, this is on the last 
day of March. — I have here stated facts, 
whereby to judge of the winter ; and I 
leave the English reader to judge for 
himself, 1 myself decidedly preferring the 
American Winter. 
April 1. Very tine and warm. 

2. Same weather. 

3. Same weather. 

4. Rain all day. 

5. Rain all day. Our cistern and pool full. 

6. Warm, but no sun. — Turkeys begin to 
lay. 

7. Same weather. M3' first spring operations 
in gardening are now going on ; but I 
must reserve an account of them for ano- 
ther Part of my work. 

8. Warm and fair. 

9. Rain and rather cold. 

10. Fair but cold. It rained but yesterda3^ 
and we are, to-day, feeding sheep and 
lambs with grains of Corn, and with Oats, 
upon the ground in the Orchard. Judge, 
then, of the cleanness and convenience of 
this soil ! 

11. Fine and warm. 

12. Warm and fair. 

13. Warm and fair. 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. 66 

April 14. Drying wind and miserably cold. Fires 
again in daytime, which I have not had 
for some days past. 

15. Warm, like a fine May-day in England. 
We are planting out selected roots for 
seed. 

16. Rain all last night. — Warm. Very fine 
indeed. 

17. Fine warm day. Heavy thunder and 
rain at night. The Martins (not swal- 
lows) are come into the barn, and are 
looking out sites for the habitations of 
their future young ones. 

18. Cold and raw. Damp, too, which is ex- 
tremely rare. The worst day I have yet 
seen during the year. Stops the grass, 
stops the swelling of the buds. The 
young chickens hardly peep out from un- 
der the wings of the hens. The lambs 
don't play, but stand hiit up. The pigs 
growl and squeak ; and the birds are 
gone away to the woods again. 

19. Same weather, with an Easterly wind- 
Just such a wind as that, which, in March, 
brushes round the corners of the streets 
of London, and makes the old, muffled-up 
debauchees hurry home with aching joints^ 
— Some hail to-day. 

20. Same weather. Just the weather to giv<"^ 
drunkards the "blue devils.'' 

21. Frost this morning. Ice as thick as a 
dollar. — Snow three times. Once to co- 
ver the ground. Wentoffagain directly. 

22. Frost and ice in the morning. A very 
fine day, but not warm. — Dandelions in 
bloom. 

23. Sharp white frost in morning. Warm 
and fine dav. 

" 6* 



6G CLIMATE, SEASONS, kc. Part L 

24. Warm night, warm and fair day. And 
here I close my Journal ; for, I am in 
haste to get my manuscript away; and 
there now wants only ten days to com- 
plete the year. — I resume, now, the 
Numhering of my Paragraphs^ having 
begun my Journal at the close of Para- 
graph No. 20. 



21. Let us, now, take a survey, or rather 
glance, at the face which nature now wears. The 
grass begins to afford a good deal for sheep and 
for my grazing English pigs, and the cow and oxen 
get a little food from it. The pears, apples, and 
other fruit trees have not made much progress in 
the swelling or bursting of their buds. The buds 
of the Weeping willow have bursted (for, in spite 
of that conceited ass, Mr. James Perry, to hurst 
is a regular verb, and vulgar pedants only make it 
irregular,) and those of a Lilac, in a warm place, 
are almost bursted, which is a great deal better 
than to say, " almost bursts Oh, the coxcomb ! 
As if an obsolete pedagogue like him could injure 
me by his criticisms ! And, as if an error like this, 
even if it had been one, could have any thing to 
do with my capacity for develo])ing principles, and 
for simplifying things, Avhich, in their nature, are 
of great complexity ! — The oaks, which, in Eng- 
land, have now their sap in full Jiozc, are here 
quite unmoved as yet. In the gardens in general 
there is nothing green, while in England, they have 
broccoli to eat, early cabbages planted out, cole- 
worts to eat, peas four or six inches high. Yet, we 
shall have green peas and loaved cabbage as soon 
as they u^ilL . We have sprouts from the cabbage 
stems preserved under cover ; the Swedish tuinip 
is giving me greens from bulbs planted out in March: 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 67 

and I have some broccoli too, just coming on for 
use. HoTi) I have got this broccoli I must explain 
in my Gardener''s Guide ; for write one I must. 
I never can leave this country without an attempt 
to make every farmer a gardener. — In the meat 
way, we have beef, mutton, bacon, fowls, a calf 
to kill in a fortnight's time, sucking pigs when we 
choose, lamb nearly fit to kill ; and all of our own 
breeding or our own feeding. We kill an ox, 
send three quarters and the hide to market and 
keep one quarter. Then a sheep, which we dis- 
pose of in the same way. The bacon is always 
ready. Some fowls always fatting. Young ducks 
are just coming out to meet the green peas. — 
Chickens (the earliest) as big as American Par- 
tridges (misnamed quails), and ready for the aspa- 
ragus, which is just coming out of the ground. 
Eggs at all times more than we can consume. 
And, if there be any one, who wants better fare 
than this, let the grumbling glutton come to that 
poverty, which Solomon has said shall be his lot. 
And, the great thing of all, is, that here, evcrTj man, 
even every labourer, may live as well as this, if 
he will be sober and industrious. 

22. There are too things, which I have not yet 
mentioned, and which are almost wholly wanting 
here, while they are so amply enjoyed in England. 
The siiiging birds and the Jlozsrcrs. Here are ma- 
ny birds in summer, and some of very beautiful 
plumage. There are some wild flowers, and some 
English flowers in the best gardens. But, gene- 
rally speaking, they are birds without song, and 
flowers without smell. The linnet (more than a 
thousand of which I have heard warbling upon one 
scrubbed oak on the sand hills in Surrey), the sky- 
lark, the gold-Jinch, the ~jcood-lark, the nightingcde^ 
the bull-Jlnch, the black-bird, the thrush, and all 
the rest of the singing tribe are wanting in these 
beautiful woods and orchards of garlands. When 



68 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &LC. Part I. 

these latter have dropped their bloom, all is gone 
in the flowery way. No shephercVs rose, no honey- 
suckle, none of that endless variety of beauties that 
decorate the hedges and the meadows in England. 
"No daisies, no primroses, no cowslips, no blue-bells, 
no daffodils, which, as if it were not enough for 
them to charm the sight and the smell, must have 
names, too, to delight the ear. All these are 
wanting in America. Here are, indeed, birds 
which bear the name of robin, black-bird, thrush 
and gold-finch ; but, alas ! the thing at Westmin- 
ster has, in like manner the name of parliament, 
which speaks the voice of the people, whom it 
pretends to represent, in much about the same 
degree that the black-bird here speaks the voice 
of its name-sake in England. 

23, ., Of health, I have not yet spoken, and, 
though it will be a subject of remark in another 
part of my work, it is a matter of too deep inte- 
rest to be wholly passed over here. In the first 
place, as to myself, I have always had excellent 
health ; but, during a year, in England, I used to 
have a cold or two ; a tritling sore throat ; or 
something in that way. Here, 1 have neither, 
though I was more than two months of the winter 
travelling about, and sleeping in different beds. 
My family have been more health}^ than in Eng- 
land, though, indeed, tfciere has seldom been any 
serious illness in it. We have had but one visit 
from any doctor. Thus much, for the present, on 
this subject. I said, in the second Register I sent 
home, that this climate was not so good as thai of 
England. Experience, observation, a careful at- 
tention to real facts, have convinced me that it is, 
iipo7i the whole, a better climate ; though I tremble 
lest the tools of the Boroughmongers should cite 
this as a new and most flagrant proof of my incon- 
sistency. England is my country', and to England 
I shall return. I like it best, and shall always 



Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 69 

like it best ; but, then, in the word England, many 
things are included besides climate and soil and 
seasons and eating and drinking. 

24. In the Second Part of this work, which will 
follow the First Part, in the course of two months, 
I shall take particular pains to detail all that is 
within my knowledge, which I think likely to be 
useful to persons who intend coming to this coun- 
try from England. 1 shall state every particular 
of the expense of supporting a family, and show 
what are the means to be obtained for that pur- 
pose, and how they are to be obtained. My in- 
tending to return to England ought to deter no one 
from coming hither ; because, I was resolved, if I 
had life, to return, and I expressed that resolution 
before I came away. But, if there are good and 
virtuous men, who can do no good there, and 
who, by coming hither, can withdraw the fruits of 
their honest labour from the grasp of the Borough 
tyrants, I am bound, if I speak of this country at 
all, to tell them the real truth ; and this, as far as 
I have gone, I have now done. 



CHAP. II. 
RUTA BAGA. 

Culture, mode of preserving, and uses of tke 

RuTA BaGA, sometimes CALLED THE RuSSIA, AND 
SOMETIMES THE SwEDISH TuRNIP. 

Description of the Plant. 

25. It is my intention, as notified in the public 
papers, to put into print an account of all the ex- 
periments which I have made, and shall make, in 
Farming and in Gardening upon this Island. I, se- 
veral years ago, long before tyranny showed its 
present horrid front in England, formed the design 
of sending out, to be published in this country, a 
treatise on the cultivation of the root and green 
crops, as cattle, sheep, and hog food. This design 
was suggested by the reading of the following pas- 
sage in Mr. Chancellor Livingston's Essay on 
Sheep, which I received in 1812. After having 
stated the most proper means to be employed in 
order to keep sheep and lambs, during the winter 
months, he adds : " Having brought our flocks 
" through the winter, we now come to the most 
"critical season, that is, the latter end of March 
" and the month of April. At this time the ground 
*' being bare, the sheep will refuse to eat their hay, 
" while the scanty picking of grass, and its purga- 
" tive quality, will disable them from taking the 
" nourishment that is necessary to keep them up. 
" If they fall away their wool will be injured, and 
*' the growth of their lambs will be stopped, and 
*' even many of the old sheep will be carried off 
" by the dysentery. To provide food for this sea- 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 71 

" son is very difficult. Turnips and Cabbage will 
" rot, and bran they will not eat after having been 
*' fed on it during the winter. Potatoes, however, 
" and the Swedish Turnip, called Ruta Baga, may 
" be usefully applied at this time, and so, I think, 
" might Parsnips and Carrots. But, as few of us 
" are in the habit of cultivating these plants to the 
" extent which is necessary for the support of a 
*' large flock, we must seek resources more within 
" our reach.'''' And then the Chancellor proceeds 
to recommend the leaving the second growth of clo- 
ver uncut, in order to produce early shoots from 
sheltered buds for the sheep to eat until the coming 
of the natural grass and the general pasturage. 

26. 1 was much surprised at reading this pas- 
sage ; having observed, when I lived in Pennsylva- 
nia, how prodigiously the root-crops of every kind 
flourished and succeeded with only common skill 
and care ; and, in 1815, having by that time had 
many crops of Ruta Baga exceeding thirty tons, or 
about one thousand Jive hundred heaped bushels to 
the acre, at Botley, 1 formed the design of sending 
out to America a treatise on the culture and uses 
of that root, which, I was perfectly well convinced, 
could be raised with more ease here than in Eng- 
land, and, that it might be easil}^ preserved during 
the whole year, if necessary, I had proved in ma- 
ny cases. 

27. If Mr. Chancellor Livingston, whose pub- 
lic-spirit is manifested fully in his excellent little 
work, which he modestlj^ calls an Ei^say, could see 
my Ewes and Lambs and Hogs, asid Cattle, at this 
" critical season'^ (I write on the 27th of March), 
with more Ruta Baga at their command than they 
have mouths to employ on it ; if he could see me, 
who am on a poor and exhausted pit ce of land, and 
who found it covered with weeds gtnd brambles in 
the month of June last ; who found no maniuc and 
who have bought none ; if he could see me over- 



72 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

stocked, not with mouths, but with food, owini^ to 
a little care in the cultivation of this invaliible 
Root, he would, I am sure, have reason to be con- 
vinced, that, if any former in the United States is 
in want of food at this pinching season of the year, 
the fault is neither in the soil nor in the climate. 

28. It is, therefore, of my mode of cultivating 
this Root in this island that I mean, at present to 
treat ; to which matter I shall add, in another Part 
of my work, an account of my experiments as to 
the Mangle WuRTZLE, or Scarcity Root ; though, 
as will be seen, I deem that root, except in parti- 
cular cases, of very inferior importance. The 
Parsnip, the Carrot, the Cabbage, are all excellent 
in their kind and in their uses ; but, as to these, I 
have not yet made, upon a scale sufficiently large 
here, such experiments as would warrant me in 
speaking with any great degree of confidence. Of 
these and other matters I propose to treat in a fu- 
ture Part, which I shall, probably, publish towards 
the latter end of this present year. 

29. The Ruta Baga is a sort of Turnip well 
known in the State of New York, where, under the 
name of Russia Turnip, it is used for the table from 
February to July. But, as it may be more of a 
stranger in other parts of the countr}^, it seems ne- 
cessary to give it enough of description to enable 
every reader to distinguish it from ever}^ other sort 
of Turnip. 

30. The leaf of every other sort of Turnip is of 
a yellowish green, while the leaf of the Ruta Baga 
is of a bluish s;reen, like tlie green of peas when of 
nearl}' their fnll size, or like the green of a young 
and thrifty early Yorkshire Cabbage, Hence ii is, 
I suppose, that some persons have called it the 
Cabbage-Turnip, But, the characteristics the most 
decidedly distinctive are these : that the outside 
of the bv.lb of the Ruta Baga is of a greenish hue 
mixed, towards the top, with a colour bordering on a 



Chap. II. RXJTA BAGA CULTCRL. 7o 

red ; and, that the inside of the bulb, if the sort be 
true and pure, is of a deep yellow, nearly as deep 
as that of gold. 



Mode of saving and of preserving the Seed. 

31. This is rather a nice business, and should 
be, by no means, executed in a negligent manner. 
For, on the well-attending to this, much of the suc- 
cess depends ; and, it is quite surprising how great 
losses are, in the end, frequently sustained by the 
.saving, in this part of the business, of an hour's la- 
bour or attention. I, one year, lost more than half 
of what would have been an immense crop, by a 
mere piece of negligence in my bailiff as to the 
seed, and I caused a similar loss to a gentleman in 
Berkshire, who had his seed from the same parcel 
that mine was taken, and who had sent many miles 
for it, in order to have the best in the world. 

32. The Ruta Baga is apt to degenerate^ if- the 
seed be not saved with care. We, in England, 
select the plants to be saved for seed. We exam- 
ine well to find out those that run least into neck 
and green. We reject all such as approach at all 
towards a whitish colour, or which are even of a 
greenish colour towards the neck, where* there ought 
to be a little reddish cast. 

33. Having selected the plants with great care, 
we take them up out of the place where they have 
grown, and plant them in a plot distant from every 
thing of the Turnip or Cabbage kind which is to 
bear seed. In this Island, I am now, at this time, 
planting Tnine for se*d (27th March), taking all our 
English precautii)ns. It is probable, that they 
would do very well, if taken out of a heap to be 
transplanted, if well selected ; but, lest this should 
not do well, I have kept my selected plants all the/ 

7 



74 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

winter in the ground in my garden well covered 
with corn stalks and leaves from the trees ; and, in- 
deed, this is so very little a matter to do, that it 
would be monstrous to suppose, that any farmer 
would neglect it on account of the labour or trou- 
ble ; especially when we consider, that the seed of 
two or three turnips is more than sufficient to sow an 
acre of land. I, on one occasion, planted twenty 
turnips for seed, and the produce, besides what the 
little birds took as their share for having kept 
down the caterpillars, was twenty-two and a half 
pounds of clean seed. ~ 

34. The sun is so ardent and the weather so 
fair here, compared with the drippy and chilly 
climate of England, while the birds here never 
touch this sort of seed, that a small plot of ground 
would, if well managed, produce a great quantity 
of seed. Whether it would degenerate is a matter 
that I have not yet ascertained ; but which I am 
about to ascertain this year. 

35. That all these precautions of selecting the. • 
plants and transplanting them are necessary I know 
by experience. I, on one occasion, had sown all 
my own seed, and the plants had been carried off 
by the Jly, of which I shall have to speak presently. 

I sent to a person who had raised some seed, which 
I afterwards found had come from turnips left pro- 
miscuous to go to seed in a part of a field where 
they had been sown. The consequence was, that 
a good third part of my crop had no bulbs ; but 
consisted of a sort of rape^ all leaves and stalks 
growing very high, while even the rest of the 
crop bore no resemblance, either in point of size or 
of quality to turnips in the same field, from seed 
saved in a proper manner, though this latter was 
sown at a later period. 

36. As to the preserving of the seed, it is an in- 
variable rule applicable to all seeds, that seed, 
kept in the poci to. the very time of sowing, will 



'■^■ix ,U'-K': 



i\ 



"'Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 75 

vegetate more quickly and more vigorously than 
seed which has been sometime threshed out. But, 
turnip seed will do very well, if threshed out as 
soon as ripe, and kept in a dry place ^ and not too 
much exposed to the air. A bag, hung up in a dry 
room is the depository that I use. But, before be- 
ing threshed out, the seed should be quite ripe, 
and, if cut off, or pulled up, which latter is the best 
way, before the pods are quite dead, the whole 
should be suffered to lie in the sun 'till the pods 
are perfectly dead, in order that the seed may im- 
bibe its full nourishment and come to complete per- 
fection ; otherwise the seed will tcither, much of 
it will not grow at all, and that which does grow 
will produce plants far inferior to those proceeding 
from well ripened seed. 



Time of SoTiDing. 

37. Our time of sowing in England is from the 
first to the twentieth of June, though some persons 
sow in May, which is still better. This was one of 
the matters of the most deep interest with me, 
when I came to Hyde Park. 1 could not begin be- 
fore the month of June : for I had no ground 
ready. But, then, 1 began with great care, on the 
2d of June, sowing, in small plots, once e-cery x/oeeh, 
'till the 30lh of July. In every case the seed took 
well and the plants grew well ; but, having looked 
at the growth of the plots, first sown, and calculated 
upon the probable advancement of them, I fixed 
iipon the 26th of June for the sowing of my princi- 
pal crop. 

38. I was particularly anxious to know, whether 
this country were cursed with the Turnip Fly, which 
is so destructive in England. It is a little insect 
about the size of a hed-Jlea, and jumps away from 



76 RUTA BACA CULTURE. Part .L 

all approacliers exactly like that insect. It abounds, 
at sometimes, in quantities so great as to eat up all 
the young plants on hundreds and thousands of acres 
in a single day. It makes its attack when the 
plants are in the seed-leaf; and, it is so very gene*- 
rally prevalent, that it is always an even chance, at 
least, that every field that is sown will be thus 
wholly destroyed. There is no remedy but that 
of ploughing and sowing again ; and this is frequent- 
ly repeated three times, and even then, there is no 
crop. Volumes upon volumes have been written 
on the means of preventing, or mitigating, this ca- 
lamity ; but nothing effectual has ever been disco- 
vered ; and, at last, the only means of insuring a 
crop of Ruta Baga in England, is, to raise the 
plants in small plots, sown at many different times, 
in the same manner as cabbages are sown, and, like 
cabbages, transplant them; of which mode of cul- 
ture 1 shall speak by and by. It is very singular, 
that a field sown one day, wholly escapes, while 
a field, sown the next day, is wholly destroyed. 
Kay, a part of the same field, sown in the morn- 
ing, will sometimes escape, while the part, sown 
in the afternoon, will be destroyed ; and, sometimes 
the afternoon sowing is the part that is spared. 
To find a remedy for this evil has posed all the 
heads of all the naturalists a»d chemists of Eng- 
land. As an evil, the smut in wheat ; the wire- 
worm ; and the grubs above ground and under 
ground ; the caterpillars green and black ; the 
slug red, black and gray ; though each a great tor- 
mentor, are nothing. Against all these there is 
&ome remedy, though expensive and plagiiing ; or, 
at any rate, their ravages are comparatively slow. 
and their causes are known. But, the iurnip-Jly 
is the English farmer's evil genius. To discover 
a remedy for, or the cause of, this plague has beeti 
the object of inquiries, experimentrj, analysises, 
innumerable. Premium upon premium offered 



Chap. II. RUTA EAGA CULTURE. 77 

Iiave only produced pretended remedies, which 
have led to disappointment and mortification ; and, 
I have no hesitation to say, that, if any man could 
find out a real remedy, and could communicate the 
means of cure, while he kept the nature of the 
means a secret, he would be a much richer man 
than he who should discover the longitude ; for 
<i\)out Jifty thousand farmers would very cheerfully 
pay him ten guineas a year each. 

39. The reader will easily judge, then, of my 
anxiety to know, whether this mortal enemy of 
the farmer existed in Long Island. This was the 
first question, which I put to every one of my 
neighbours, and I augured good, from their not 
appearing to understand what I meant. However, 
as my little plots of turnips came up successively, 
I watched them as our farmers do their fields in 
England. To my infinite satisfaction I found that 
my alarms had been groundless. This circum- 
stance, besides others that I have to mention by 
and by, gives to the stock-farmer in America so 
great an advantage over the farmer in England, 
or in any part of the middle and northern parts of 
Europe, that it is truly wonderful that the culture 
of this root has not, long ago, become general in 
this country. 

40. The time of sowing, then, maybe, as cir- 
cumstances may require, from the 25th of June to ' 
•about the 10th of July; as the result of my expe- 
riments will now show. The plants sown during 
the first fifteen days of June grew well and attained 
a great size and weight ; but, though they did not 
actually go off to seed^ they were very little short 
of so doing. They rose into long and large necks 
and sent out sprouts from the upper part of the 
bulb ; and, then, the bulb itself (which is the thing 
sought after) swelled no more. The substance of 
the bulb became hard and stringy ; and the tur- 

^lips, upon the whole, were smaller and of greatly 



73 RUT A BAG A cvLTURE, Part L 

inferior quality, compared with those, which were, 
sown at the proper time. 

41. The turnips sown between the 15th and 
26th of June, had all these b^td appearances and 
quality, only in a less degree. But, those, which 
were sown on the 26th of June, were perfect in 
shape, size, and quality; and though I have grown 
them larger in England, it was not done without 
more manure upon half an acre than I scratched 
together to put upon seven acres at Hyde Park ; 
but, of this I shall speaic more particularly when 1 
come to the quantity of crop. 

42. The sowings which were made after the 
26th of June and before the 10th of July, did very 
well ; and, one particular sowing on the 9th of 
July, on 12 rods, or perches, of ground, sixteen 
and a half feet to the rod, j^ielded 62 bushels, 
leaves and roots cut oif, which is after the rate of 
992 bushels to an acre. But this sowing was on 
ground extremely well prepared and sufficiently 
manured with ashes from burnt earth ; a mode of 
raising manure of which I shall fully treat in a 
future Chapter. 

43. Though this crop was so large, sown on the 
9th of July, I would by no means recommend any 
farmer, who can sow sooner, to defer the business 
to that time ; for, 1 am of opinion with the old 
folk in the West of England, that God is almost 
always on the side oi early farniers. Besides, one 
delay too often produces another delay ; and he 
who puts oif to the 9th, may put off to the 19th. 

44. The crops, in small plots, which I sowed 
after the 9th of July to the 30th of that mouth, 
gre-jo very well ; but they regularly succeeded 
each other in diminution of size ; and, which is 
a great matter, the cold weather overtook them 
before they were ripe ; and ripeness is full as 
necessary in the case of roots as in the case of 
apples or of peaches. 



Chap. I. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 



Quality and Preparation of the Land. 

45. As a fine, rich, loose, garden mould, of 
great depth, and having a porous stratunm under 
it, is best for every thing that vegetates, except 
plants that live best in water, so it is best for Ruta 
Baga. But I know of no soil in the United States, 
in which this root ma}' not be cultivated with the 
greatest facility. A pure sand, or a very stiff^day, 
would not do well certainly ; but I have never 
seen any of either in America. The soil that 
I cultivate is poor almost proverbially ; but, what 
it really is, is this : it is a light loam, approaching 
towards the sandy. It is of a brownish colour 
about eight inches deep, then becomes more of a 
red for about another eight inches ; and then comes 
a mixture of a yellowish sand and of pebbles, 
which continues down to the depth of many feet. 

46. So much for the nature of the land. As to 
its state, it was that of as complete poverty as can 
well be imagined. My main crop of Ruta Baga was 
sown upon two different pieces. One of about 
three acres, had borne, in 1816, some Indian Corn 
Stalks together with immense quantities of bram- 
bles, grass, and weeds, of all descriptions. The 
other, of about four acres, had, when 1 took to it, 
Rye growing on it ; but, this Rye was so poor, that 
my neighbour assured me, that it could produce 
nothing, and he advised me to let the cattle and sheep 
take it for their trouble of walking over the ground ; 
which advice I readily followed ; but, when he 
heard me say, that I intended to sow Russia Tur- 
nips on that same ground, he very kindly told me 
his opinion of the matter, which was, that I should 
certainly throw my labour wholly away. 

47. With these two pieces of ground I went to 
work early in June. I ploughed them very shallow, 
thinking to drag the grassy clods up with, the 



80 RUTA BAGA cuLTiniE. Part I. 

harrow, to put them in heaps and burn them, in 
which case I would (barring the fly .'), have pledged 
my life for a crop of Ruta Baga. It adversely 
happened to 7-ai7i when my clods should have been 
burnt, and the furrows were so solidly fixed down 
by the rain, that I could not tear them up with the 
harrow ; and, besides, my time of sowiiig came on 
apace. Thus situated, and having no faith in 
what I was told about the dangers of deep plough- 
ing, I fixed four oxen to a strong plough, and 
turned up soil that had not seen the sun for many, 
many long years. Another soaking rain came very 
•goon after, and went, at once, to the bottom of my 
ploughing, instead of being carried awa}' instantly by 
evaporation. 1 then harrowed the ground down 
level, in order to keep it moist as long as I could ; 
for the sun now began to be the thing most dreaded. 

48. In the meanwhile I was preparing my ma- 
nure. There was nothing of the kind visible upon 
the place. But, I had the good luck to follow a 
person, who appears not to have known much of 
the use of brooms. By means of sweeping and 
raking and scratching in and round the house, the 
barn, the stables, the hen roost, ant] the court and 
yard, I got together about four hundred bushels of 
not very bad turnip manure. This was not quite 
60 bushels to an acre for my seven acres 5 or. 
THREE GALLONS to every square rod. 

49. However, though I made use of these beg- 
garly means, I would not be understood to recom- 
mend the use of such means to others. On the 
contrary, I should have preferred good and clean 
land and plenty of manure ; but, of this I shall 
speak again, when I have given an account of the 
Manner of ,%mng and of Transplanting. 



Chap. II. RUTA BAG A CULT URL. 



J^Iannner of Sowing. 

60. Thus fitted out witli land and manure, I set 
to the work of sowing, which was performed, with 
the help of two ploughs and two pair of oxen, on 
the 25th, 26th, and 27th of June. The ploughman 
put the ground up into little ridges, having trvo 
furrorsi'S on each side of the ridge ; so that ever}' 
ridge consisted of four furrows, or turnings over of 
the plough ; and the tops of the ridges were about 
four feet from each other ; and, as the ploughing 
-was performed to a great depth, there was, of 
course, a very deep gutter between every two 
ridges. 

51, I took care to have the manure placed so as 
to be under the middle of each ridge ; that is to say, 
just beneath where my seed was to come. I had^ 
but a very small quantity of seed as well as of 
manure. This seed I had, however, brought from 
home, where it was raised by a neighbour, on whom 
I could rely, and I had^no faith in any other. So 
that I was compelled to bestow it on the ridges 
with a very parsimonious hand, not having, I be- 
lieve, more than four pounds to sow on the seven 
acres. It was sown principally in this manner : a man 
went along by the side of each ridge, and put down 
two or three seeds in places at about ten inches 
from each other, just drawing a little earth over, 
and pressing it on the seed, in order to make it 
vegetate quickly before the earth became too dry. 
This is always a good thin^ to be done, and espe- 
cially in dry weather and under a hot sun. Seeds 
are very small things ; and thouflfl^when we see 
them covered over with the earth, we conclude 
that the earth iimst touch them closely, we should 
remember, that a verj^ small cavity is suihcient to 
keep them untouched nearly all round, in which 
case, under a hot sun, and near the surface, they 



S2 RUTA BAGA CULTUIIE. Part L 

are sure to perish, or, at least, to lie long, and 
until rain come, before they start. 

52. I remember a remarkable instance of this 
in sowing some turnips to transplant at Botley. 
The whole of a piece of grotind was sown broad- 
cast. My gardener had been told to sow in beds, 
that we might go in to weed the plants ; and, 
having forgotten this 'till after sowing, he clapped 
down his line, and divided the plot into beds by 
treading very hard a little path at the distance of | 
every four feet. The weather was very dry, and 
the wind very keen. It continued so for three 
weeks ; and, at the end of that time, we had scarcely 
a turnip in the beds, where the ground had been 
left raked over ; but, in the paths we had an abun- 
dance, which grew to be very fine, and which, 
when transplanted, made part of a field which bore 
thirty-three tons to the acre, smd which, as a whole 
yield, was the first field I ever saw in my life. 

63. I cannot help endeavouring to press this 
fact upon the reader. Squeezing down the earth 
makes it touch the seed in all its parts, and then it 
will soon vegetate. It is for this reason, that bar- 
ley and oat fields should be rolled, if the weather 
be dry ; and, indeed, that all seeds should be press- 
ed down, if the state of the earth will admit of it. 

54. This mode of sowing is neither tedious nor 
expensive. Two men sowed the whole of my se- 
ven acres in the three days, which, when we con- 
sider the value of the crop, and the saving in the 
after culture, is really not worth mentioning. 1 do 
not think, that any sowing by drill is so good, and, 
in the end, so cheap, as this. Drills miss very 
often in the sowMlgs of such small seeds. Howe- 
ver, the thing may be done by hand in a less pre- 
cise manner. One man would have sown the se- 
ven acres in a day, by just scattering the seeds a- 
long on the top of the ridge, where they might have 
been buried with a rake, and pressed do'.rn by a 



Chap. ir. ftUTA BAGA CULTURE. 03 

spade or shovel or some other flat instrument. A 
slight roller to take two ridges at once, the horse 
walking in the gutter between, is what I used to 
make use of when I sowed on ridges ; and, who can 
want such a roller in America, as long as he has an 
axe and an auger in his house ? Indeed this whole 
matter is such a trifle, wdien compared with the 
importance of the object, that it is not to be belie- 
ved, that any man Avill think it worth the smallest 
notice as counted amongst the means of obtaining 
that object. 

^ 55. Broad-cast sowing will, however, probably, 
be, in most cases, preferred ; and, this mode of 
sowing is pretty well understood from general ex- 
perience. What is required here are, that the 
ground be well ploughed, finely harrowed, and the 
seeds thinly and evenly sown over it, to the amount 
of about two pounds of seed to an acre ; but, then, 
if the weather be dry, the seed should, by all 
means, be rolled down. When I have spoken of 
the after culture, I shall compare the two methods 
of sowing : the ridge and the broad-cast, in order 
that the reader may be the better able to say, which 
of the two is entitled to the preference. 



After Culture. 

56. It relating to what I did in this respect, i 
shall take it for granted, that the reader will under- 
stand me as describing what I think ought to be 
done. 

67. When my ridges were laid up, and my seed 
was sown, my neighbours thought, that there was 
an end of the process ; for, they all said, that, if 
the seed ever came up, being upon those high 
ridges, the plants never could live under the scorch- 
ing of the sun. I knew, that this was an erroneous 
notion ; but, I had not much confidence in the 



84 "RUTA feAGA CULTURiJ. Pail I, 

powers of the soil, poor as it evidently was, and 
scanty as was my supply of manure. 

68. The plants, however, made their appear- 
ance with great regularity ; no fly came to annoy 
them. The moment they were fairly up, we went 
with a very small hoe and took out ail but one in 
each ten or eleven or twelve inches, and thus left 
them singly placed. This is a great point ; for 
they begin to rob one another at a very early age ; 
and, if left two or three weeks to rob each other 
before they are set o\jt singly, the crop wilj be di 
minished one half. To set the plants out in thi 
way was a very easy and quickly-performed busi 
ness ; but, it is a business to be left to no one but a 
careful man. Boj^s can never safely be trusted with 
the deciding, at discretion, whether you shall have 
a large crop or a small one. 

59. But, now, something else began to appear as 
well as turnip-plants ; for, all the long grass and; 
weeds having dropped their seeds the summer be- 
fore, and, probably, for many summers, they now 
came forth to demand their share of that nourish- 
ment, produced by the fermentation, the dews, and 
particularly by the Sun, which shines on all alike. 
1 never saw a tiftieth part of so many weeds in my 
life upon a like space of ground. Their little seed 
leaves, of various hues, formed a perfect mat on 
the ground. And now it was, that my wide ridges, 
which had appeared to my neighbours to be so very 
singular and so unnecessary, were absolutely ne- 
cessary. First we went with a hoe, and hoed the 
tops of the ridges, about six inches wide. There 
were all the plants, then, clear and clean at once, 
with an expense of about half a day's work to an 
acre. Then we came, in our Botley fashion, with 
a single horse plough, took a furrow from the side 
of one ridge going up the field, a furrow from the 
other ridge coming down, then another furrow 
from the sapie side of the first ridge going up, and 



Chap. H. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 85 

another from the same side of the other ridge coming 
down. In the taking away of the last two furrows, 
we went within three inches of the turnip-plants. — • 
Thus there was a ridge over the original gutter. 
Then we turned these furrows back again to the 
turnips. And, having gone, in this manner, ovfir 
the whole piece, there it was with not a weed alive- 
in it. All killed by the sun, and the field as clean 
and as fine as any garden that ever was seen. 

60. Those who know the effect of tillage between 
growing plants^ and especially if the earth be moved 
deep ; and, indeed, what American does not know 
what such effect is, seeing that, without it, there 
would be no Indian Corn ; those that reflect on this 
effect, may guess at the effect on my Ruta Baga 
plants, which soon gave me by their appearance 
a decided proof, that Tull's principles are always 
true, in whatever soil or climate applied. 

61. It was now a very beautiful thing to see, a 
regular, unbroken line of fine, fresh-looking plants 
upon the tops of those wide ridges, which had been 
thought to be so very whimsical and unnecessary. 
But, why have the ridges so very wide? This 
question was not new to me, who had to answer 
it a thousand times in England. It is because you 
rannot plough deep and clean in a narrower space 
than four feet ; and, it is the deep and clean 
ploughing that j regard as the surest mfeans of a 
large crop, especially in poor, or indifferent ground. 
It is a great error to suppose, that there is any 
ground lost by these wide intervals. My crop of 
thirty-three tons, or, thirteen hundred and twenty 
bushels, to the acre, taking a whole field together, 
had the same sort of intervals, while my neigh- 
bours, with two feet intervals, never arrived at two- 
thirds of the weight of thai crop. There is no 
ground lost ; for, any one wbo has a mind to do it, 
may satisfy himself, that the lateral roots of any fine 
large turnip will extend more than six feet from the 



Qb ^ KUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part T 

bulb of the plant. The intervals are full of these 
roots, the breaking of which and the moving of 
which, as in the case of Indian Corn, gives new 
food and new roots, and produces wonderful effects 
on the plants. Wide as my intervals were, the 
leaves of some of the plants very nearly touched 
those of the plants on the adjoining ridge, before 
the end of their growth ; and I have had them fre- 
quently meet in this way in England. They would 
always do it here, if the ground were rich and the 
tillage proper. How, then, can the intervals be 
too wide, if the plants occupy the interval ? And 
how can any ground be lost, if every inch be full 
of roots and shaded by leaves? 

62. After the last-mentioned operation my plants re- 
mained till the weeds had agaia made their appear- 
ance ; or, rather, 'till a new brood had started up, 
when this was the case, we went with the hoe again 
and cleaned the tops of the ridges as before. The 
weeds, under this all-powerful sun, instantly perish. 
Then we repeated the former operation with the 
one horse plough. After this nothing was done 
but to pull up now and then a weed, which had es- 
caped the hoe ; for, as to the plough share, nothing 
escapes that. 

63. Now, I think no farmer can discover in this 
process any thing more difficult, more trouble- 
some, more expensive, than in the process abso- 
lutely necessary to the obtaining of a crop of Indian 
Corn. And yet, I will venture to say, that, in any 
land, capable of bearing Jifty bushels of Corn upon 
an acre, more than a thousand bushels of Ruta 
Baga may, in the above-described manner, be 
raised. 

64. In the Broad-Cast method the after culture 
must, of course, be copfmed to hoeing, or, as Tull 
calls it, scratching. In England, the hoer goes in 
when the plants are about four inches high, and 
boes all the ground, setting out th? plants to about 



Chap II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 87 

eighteen inches apart ; and, if the ground be at all 
foul, he is obliged to go in again in about a month 
afterwards, to hoe the ground again. This is all 
that is done ; and a very poor all it is, as the crops, 
©n the very best ground, compared with the ridged 
crops, invariably show. 



Transplanting. 

.^ 65. This is a third mode of cultivating the Ruta 
" Baga ; and, in certain cases, far preferable to ei- 
ther of the two others. My large crops at Botlej 
were from roots transplanted. I resorted to this 
mode in order to insure a crop in spite of the Fly ; 
but, I am of opinion, that it is, in all cases, the best 
mode, provided hands can be obtained in sufficient 
number, just for a few days, or weeks, as the quan- 
tity may be, when the land and the plants are 
ready. 

^^. Much light is thrown on matters of this 
sort by describing what one has done one's-self re- 
lating to them. This is -practice at once; or, at 
least, it comes much nearer to it than any instruc- 
tions possibly can. 

67. It Was accident that led me to the practice. 
In the summer, of 1812, I had a piece of Ruta Ba- 
ga in the middle of a held, or, rather, the piece 
occupied a part of the held, having a crop of car- 
rots on the one side and a crop of mangle wurtzle 
on the other side. On the 20th of July the Tur- 
nips, or rather those of them which had escaped 
the Fly, began to grow pretty well. They had 
been sown in drills ; and I was anxious to hll up 
the spaces, which had been occasioned by the ra- 
vages of the Fly. I, therefore, took the supernu- 
merary plants, which I found in the unattacjced 



58 RUTA BA6A GULTUKE. Part T. 

places, and filled up the rows by transplantation, 
which 1 did also in two other fields. 

68. The Turnips, thus transplanted, greTs), and 
in fact, were pretty good ; but, they were very 
far inferior to those which had retained their ori- 
ginal places. But, it happened, that on one side of 
the above-mentioned piece of turnips, there was a 
vacant space of about a yard in breadth. When 
the ploughman had finished ploughing between the 
rews of turnips, I made him plough up that spare 
ground very deep, and upon it I made my gardener 
go and plant two rows of turnips. These became 
the largest and finest of the whole piece, though 
transplanted two days later than those which had 
been transplanted in the rows throughout the piece^ 
The'cause of this remarkable difference I, at once, 
saw, was, that these had been put into newly-plough- 
ed ground ; for, though 1 had not read much of 
TuLL at the time here referred to, 1 knew, from 
the experience of my whole life, that seeds as well 
as plants ought always to go into ground as recent- 
ly moved as possible ; because at every moving of 
the earth, and particularly at every turning of it, 
a new process of fermentation takes place, fresh 
exhalations arise, and a supply oi the food of plants 
is thus prepared for the newly-arrived guests.— t- 
Mr. CuRWEU^, the Member of Parliament, though 
a poor thing as to public matters, has published not 
a bad book on agricidture. It is not bad, because 
it contains many authentic accounts of experiments 
made by himself ; though I never can think of his 
book without thinking, at the same time, of the gross 
and scandalous plagiarisms, which he has commit- 
ted upon TuLL. Without mentioning particulars, 
the " Honourable Member" will, 1 am sure, know 
what I mean, if this page should ever have the ho- 
nour to fall under his eye ; and he will, I hope, re- 
pent, and give proof of his repentance, by a resto*^ 
ration of the property to the right Q\^ner= 



Chap. II. RXJTA BAGA CULTURE. 89 

69: However, Mr. Curwen, in his book, gives 
an account of the wonderful eff'ects of moving the 
ground between plants in rows ; and he tells us of 
an experiment, which he made, and which proved, 
that from ground just ploughed, in a very dry time, 
an exhalation of many tons weight, per acre, took 
place, during the first twenty-four hours after 
ploughing, and of a less and less number of tons, 
during the three or four succeeding twenty-four 
hours ; that, in the course of about a week, the 
exhalation ceased ■; and that, during the v/hole pe- 
riod, the ground, though in the same field, which 
had not been ploughed when the other ground was, 
exhaled 7iot an ounce ! When I read tliis in Mr. 
Curwen's book, which was before I had read Tull, 
I called to mind, that, having once dug the ground 
between some rows of part of a plot of cabbages in 
my garden, in order to plant some late peas, I per- 
ceived (it was in a dry time) the cabbages, the next 
morning, in the part recently dug, with big drops 
of dew hanging on the edges of the leaves, and in 
the other, or undug part of the plot, no drops at 
all. I had forgotten the fact 'till I read Mr. Cur- 
WEN ; and I never knew the cause 'till I read the 
real Father of English Husbandry, 

70. From this digression I return to the history^ 
first of my English transplanting. I saw, at once, 
that the only way to insure a crop of turnips was 
by transplantation. The next year, therefore, J 
prepared a field of five acres and another of 
tTnelve. I made ridges^ in the manner described 
for sowing ; and, on the 7th of June, in the first 
field, and on the 20th of July, in the second field, 
I planted my plants. I ascertained to an exactness, 
that there were thirty-three tons to an acre, through- 
out the whole seventeen acres. After this, I never 
used any other method. I never saiv above half 
as great a crop in any other person's land ; and, 
though we read of much greater in agricultural 
8* ^ ■ 



90 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part L ' 

'pri:::e reports, they must have been of the extent of 
a n ingle acre, or something in that way. In my 
usual order, the ridges four feet asunder, and the 
plants a foot asunder on the ridge, there are ten 
thousand, eight hundred and thirty turnips on the 
acre of ground, and, therefore, for an acre to weigh 
thirty-three tons, each turnip must weigh very near- 
ly seven pounds. After the time here spoken of, I 
had an acre or two at the end of a large field, trans- 
planted on the 13th of July, which probably weigh- 
ed j^/^^ tons an acre. I delayed to have them weighT 
ed 'till a fire happened in some of my farm builds 
ings, which produced a further delay, and so the 
thing was not done at all ; but, 1 weighed one rs:agon 
load, the turnips of which averaged eleven pounds 
each; and, several weighed /owr<eg/i pounds Ccich. 
My very largest upon Long Island weighed twelve 
founds and a half. In all these cases, as well here 
as in England, the produce was from transplanted 
plants ; though, at Hyde Park, I have many tur- 
nips of more than ten pounds weight each from sozvn 
plants, some of which, on account of the great per- 
fection in their qualities, I have selected, and am 
now planting out, for seed. 

71. I will now give afuU account of m'y transplant- 
ing at Hyde Park. In apart of the ground, which 
was put into ridges and sown, I scattered the seed 
along very thinly upon the top of the ridge. But, 
however thinly you may attempt to scatter such 
small seeds, there will always be too many plants, 
if the tillage be good and the seed good also. I 
suffered these plants to stand as they came up } 
and, they stood much too long, on account of my 
want of hands, or, rather, my want of time to at- 
tend to give my directions in the transplanting ; 
and, indeed, my example too ; for, I met not with 
a man who knew how to Jix a plant in the ground j 
and, strange as it may appear, more than half the 
bulk of crop depends on a little, trifling, contempti- 



Chap. If. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. $f 

ble twist of the setting stick, or dibble ; a thing very 
well known to all gardeners in the case of cabba- 
ges, and about which, therefore, I will give, by and 
by, very plain instructions. 

72. Thus puzzled, and not being able to spare 
time to do the job myself, I was one day looking 
at my poor plants, which were daily suflering for 
want of removal, and was thinking how glad I should 
be of one of the Churcher's at Botley, who, I 
thought to myself, would soon clap me out my tur- 
nip patch. At this very time, and into the field 
itself, came a cousin of one of these Churchers, 
who had lately arrived from England ! It was very 
strangle ; but literally the fact. 

73. To work Churcher and I went, and, with 
the aid of persons to pull up the plants and bring 
fhem to us, we planted out about two acres, in the 
^nornings and evenings of six days; for the wea.ther 
was too hot for us to keep out after breakfast, un- 
til about two hours before sunset. There was a 
friend staying with me, who helped us plant, and 
who did, indeed, as much of the wopk as either 
Churcher or I. 

74. The time when this was done was from the 
21st to the 28th o{ August, one Sunday and one day 
of no planting, having intermitted. Every body 
knows, that this is the very hottest season of the 
year; and, as it happened, this was, last summer, 
the very driest also. The weather had been hot 
and dry from the tenth of Ang^ist ; and so it conti- 
nued to the \2th of September. Any gentleman 
who has kept a journal of last year, upon Long 
Island, will know this to be correct. Who would 
have thought to see these plants thrive ? Who 
would have thought to see them live? The next 
day after being planted, their leaves crumbled be- 
tween our fingers like the old leaves of trees. In 
two days there was no more appearance of a crop 
upon the ground than there was of a crop on the. 



^ RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Parti. 

turnpike road. But, on the 2d of September, as I 
have it in my memorandum book, the plants began 
to show life ; and, before the rain came, on the 
12th, the piece began to have an air of verdure, 
and, indeed, to grow and to promise a good crop. 

75. I will speak of the hulk of this crop by and 
by ; but, 1 must here mention another transplanta- 
tion that I made in the latter end oi July. A plot 
of ground, occupied by one of my earliest sowings, 
had the turnips standing on it in rows at eighteen 
inches asunder, and at a foot asunder in the rows. 
Towards the middle of July I tbund, that one half 
of the rows must be taken away, or that the whole 
would be of little value. Having pulled up the 
plants, I intended to transplant them (as they say of 
bishops) from the garden to the field ; but, I had no 
ground ready. However, I did not like to throw 
away these plants, which had already bulbs as large 
as hen's eggs. They were carried into the cellar, 
where they lay in a heap, till (which would soon ■ 
happen in such hot weather) they began io ferment.- 
This made the most of their leaves turn white. 
Unwilling, still, to throw them away, I next laid 
them on the grass in front of the house, where they 
got the dews in the night, and they were covered 
with a mat during the day, except two days, when 
they were overlooked, or, rather, neglected. The 
heat was very great, and, at last, supposing these 
plants dead, I did not cover them any more. There 
they lay abandoned till the 24th of July, on which day 
I began planting cabbages in my field. I then thought, 
that I would try the hardiness of a Ruta Baga Plant. 
I took these same abandoned plants, without a mor- 
sel of green left about them ; planted them in part 
of a row of the piece of cabbages ; and they, a hun- 
dred and six in number, weighed when they were 
taken up in December, nine hundred and one pounds. 
One of these turnips weighed t-jnehe pounds and a 
half. 



Chap. II. iUTA BAGACUITUKE. 95 

76. But, it ought to be observed, that this was 
in ground which liad been got up in my best man- 
ner ; that it had some of the best of my manure ; 
and that uncommon pains were taken by myself in 
the putting in of the plants. This experiment shows, 
what a hardy plant this is ; but, I must caution the 
teader against a belief, that it is either desirable or 
prudent to put this quality to so severe a test. 
There is no necessity for it, in general ; and, in- 
deed, the rule is, that the shorter time the plants 
are out of the ground the better. 

77. But, as to the business of transplanting^ 
there is one very material observation to make. 
The ground ought to be us fresh; that is to say, as 
recently moved by the plough, as possible ; and that 
for the reasons before stated. The way I go on is 
this : My land is put up into ridges, as describee^ 
under the head of manner of sowing. This is done 
beforehand. Several days ; or, it may be, a week 
or more. When we have our plants and hands all 
ready, the ploughman begins and turns in the ridg: 
es ; that is to say, ploughs the ground back again^ 
so that the top of the new ploughed ridge stands 
over the place where the channel, or gutter, or 
deep furrow, was, before he began. As soon as he 
has finished the first ridge, the planters plant it, 
while he is ploughing the second : and so on 
throughout the field. That this is not a very tedi- 
ous process the reader needs only to be told, that,. 
in 1816, 1 ha6 fifty trt'o acres of RutaBaga planted in 
this way ; and I think I had more than fifty thousand 
bushels. A smart hand will plant half an acre a 
day, with a girl or boy to drop the plants for him, 
I had a man, who planted an acre a day, many a 
time. But, supposing, that a quarter pf an acre is 
a day's work. What are four days'' work when put 
in competition with the value of an acre of this in- 
valuable root ? And what farmer is there, who 
bas common industry, who would grudge to beiiU 



94 BUTA EAGA CULTURE. Part V 

his own back eight or twelve days, for the sake of 
keeping all his stock through the spring months^ i 
when dry food is loathsome to them, and when 
grass is by nature denied ? 

78. Observing well ivhat has been said about 
earth perfectly fresh, and never forgetting this, let 
us now talk about the act of planting ; the mere 
mechanical operation of putting the plant into thel 
ground. We have a setting-stick, which should be| 
the top of a spade-handle cut oif, about ten inches 
below the eye. It must be pointed smoothly ; and, 
if it be shod with thin iron, that is to say, covered 
with an iron sheath, it will work more smoothly, 
and do its business the better. At any rate the 
point should be nicely smoothed, and so should the 
whole of the tool. The planting is performed like 
that of cabbage plants ; but, as I have met with 
very few persons, out of the market gardens and 
gentlemen's gardens in England, who knew how to 
plant a cabbage plant, so I am led to suppose, that 
very few, comparatively speaking, know how to 
plant a turnip plant. 

79. You constantly hear people say, that they 
wait for a shower, in order to put out their cabbage 
plants. Never was there an error more general 
or more complete in all its parts. Instead of rainy 
weather being the best time, it is the very worst 
time, for this business of transplantation, whether 
of cabbages, or of any thing else, from a lettuce 
plant to an apple tree. I have proved the fact in 
scores upon scores of instances. The first time 
that I had any experience of the matter was in the 
planting out of a plot of cabbages in my garden at 
Wilmington, in Delaware. I planted in dry weather, 
and, as 1 had always done, in such cases, I watered 
the plants heavily ; but, being called away for som£ 
purpose, I left one row iinwatered, and ithappei^sd, ' 
that it so continued without my observing it 'tiJW 
the next day. The sun had so completely scorchod 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 95 

it by the next night, that, when I repeated my 
watering of the rest, I left it, as being unworthy of 
my care, intending to plant some other thing in the 
ground occupied by this dead row. But, in a ievi 
days, I saw, that it was not dead. It grew soon 
afterwards ; and, in the end, the cabbages of my 
dead row were not ou\y larger, but earlier in loav- 
ing, than any of the rest of the plot. 

80. The reason is this : if plants are put into ti^et 
earth, the setting-stick squeezes the earth up 
against the tender tibres in a mortar-like state. The 
sun comes and bakes this mortar into a sort of glazed 
clod. The hole made by the stick is also a smooth 
sided hole, which retains its form, and presents, on 
every side, an impenetrable substance to the fibres. 
In short, such as the hole is made, such it, in a 
great measure remains, and the roots are cooped 
up in this sort of tivell, instead of having a free 
course left them to seek their food on every side. 
Besides this, the fibres get, from being wet when 
planted, into a small compass. They all cling 
about the tap root, and are stuck on to it by the 
wet dirt, in which state, if a hot sun follow, they 
are all baked together in a lump, and cannot stir. 
On the contrary, when put into ground wi'wet, 
the reverse of all this takes place ; and, the fresh 
earth will, under a???/ sun, supply moisture in quan- 
tity sufficient. 

8 1 . Yet, in July and August, both in England and 
America, how many thousands and thousands are 
ivaiting for a shower to put out their plants I And, 
then, when the long-wished-for shower comes, they 
must plant upon stale ground, for they have it dug 
ready, as it were for the purpose of keeping them 
company in waiting for the shower. Thus all the 
fermentation, which took place upon the digging, 
is gone ; and, when the planting has once taken 
place, farewell to the spade ! For, it appears to be 
^privilege of the Indian Corn to receive soijiething 



96 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part L 

like good usage after being planted. It is very 
strange, that it should have been thus ; for, what 
reason is there for other plants not enjoying a simi- 
lar benefit ; The reason is, that they will produce 
something without it ; and the Indian Corn will posi- 
tively produce nothing ; for which the Indian Corn 
is very much to be commended. As an instance of 
this effect of deeply moving the earth between 
growing crops, I will mention, that, in the month 
of June, and on the 26th of that month, a very kind 
neighbour t)f mine, in whose garden I was, showed 
me a plot of Green Savoy Cabbages, which he had 
planted in some ground as rich as ground could be. 
He had planted them about three weeks before ; 
and they appeared very fine indeed. In the seed 
bed, from which he had taken his plants, there 
remained about a hundred ; but, as they had been 
l^ii as of no use, they had drawn each other up, iaij 
company with the weeds, 'till they were about '' 
eighteen inches high, having only a starved leaf, or 
two, upon the top of each. I asked my neighbour i, 
to give me these plants, which he readily did ; but J 
begged me not to plant them, for, he assured me, 
that they would come to nothing. Indeed, they 
were a ragged lot ; but, I had no plants of ni}^ own 
j^ovving more than two inches high. I, therefore, 
took these plants and dug some ground for them 
between some rows of scarlet-blossom beans, which 
mount upon poles. 1 cut a stick on purpose, and 
put the plants very deep in the ground. My beans 
came off in August, and then the ground was well 
xlug between the rows of cabbages. In September, 
mine had far surpassed the prime plants of my 
neighbour. And, in the end, 1 believe, that ten of 
my cabbages would have weighed more than x« 
hundred of his, leaving out the stems in both cases. 
But, his had remained uncultivated after 'planting. 
The ground, battered down by the successive heavy 
rains, had become hard as brick. All the stores of 



* 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 97 

food had been locked up, and lay in a dormant 
state. There had been no renewed fermentations, 
and no exhalations. 

82. Having now said what, I would fain hope, 
will convince every reader of the folly of waiting 
for a shower in order to transplant plants of any 

sort, I will now speak of the mere act of planting 
more particularly than I have hitherto spoken. 

83. The hole is made sufficiently deep ; deeper 
than the length of the root does really require ; 
but, the root should not be bent at the point, if it 
can be avoided. Then, while one hand holds the 
plant, with its root in the hole, the other hand ap- 
plies the setting-stick to the earth on one side of the 
hole, the stick being held in such a way as to form 
a sharp triangle with the plant. Then pushing 
the stick down, so that its point goes a little deeper 
than the point of the root, and giving it a little twist, 
it presses the earth against the point, or bottom of 
the root. And thus all is safe, and the plant is sure 
to grow. 

84. The general, and almost universal fault, is, 
that the planter, when he has put the root into the 
hole, draws the earth up against the upper part of 
the root, or stem, and, if he presses pretty well 
there, he thinks that the planting is well done. 
But, it is the point of the root, against which the 
earth ought to be pressed, for there the fibres are ; 
and, if they do not touch the earth closely, the plant 
will not thrive. The reasons have been given in 
Paragraphs 61 and 52, in speaking of the sowing of 
seeds. It is the same in all cases of transplanting or 
planting. Trees for instance, will be sure to grow, 
if you si/i; the earth, or pulverize it very finely, 
and place it carefully and closely about the roots. 
When we plant a tree, we see all covered by tum- 
bling in the earth ; and, it appears whimsical to 
suppose, that the earth does not touch all the roots. 
But, the fact is, that, unless great pains be taken, 

9 



98 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

there will be many cavities in the hole where the 
tree is planted ; and, in whatever places the earth 
does not closely touch the root, the root will mould, 
become cankered, and will lead to the producing of 
a poor tree. ' 

85. When I began transplanting in fields in Eng- 
land, I had infinite difliculty in making my planters 
attend to the directions, which 1 have here given. 
"• llie point of the stick to the point of the root^''"' was 
my constant cry. As I could not be much with 
my work-people, 1 used, in order to try whether 
they had planted properly, to go after them, and 
Fiow-and-then take the tip of a leaf between my 
finger and thumb, if the plant resisted the pull, so 
as for the bit of leaf to come away, 1 was sure, 
that the plant was well fixed ; but, if the pull 
brought up the plant out of the ground ; then I was 
sure, that the planting was not well done. After 
the first fieid or two, I had no trouble. My work 
was as well done, as if the whole had been done by 
myself. My planting was done chiefly by young 
rt'omen, each of whom would plant half an acre a 
day, and their pay was ten pence sterling a day. 
VVliat a shame, then, for any mati to shrink at the 
trouhle and labour of such a matter ! Nor, let it be 
imagined, that these young women were poor, 
miserable, ragged, squalid creatures. They were 
just the contrary. On a Sunday they appeared in 
their "di'hiie dresses, and with silk umbrellas over 
their heads. Their constant labour afforded the 
means of dressing well, their early rising and exer- 
cise gave tiiem health, their habitual cleanliness 
and neatness, for which the women of the South of 
England are so justly famed, served to aid in the 
completing of theirappcarance. which was that of 
iine rosy-cheeked country girls, fit to be help-mates, 
and not a burden, of tlieir future husbands. 

86. But, at any rate, what can be said for a man 
that thinks too much of such a piece of labour / 



Chap. II. RrxA baga culture. 99 

The earth is extremely grateful ; but it must and 
will have something to be grateful for. As far as 
my little experience has enabled me to speak, I 
find no want of 'willingness to learn in any of the 
American workmen. Ours, in England, are apt to 
be A^ery obstinate^ especially if getting a little old. 
They do not like to be taught any thing. They 
say, and they think, that what their fathers did was 
best. To tell them, that it is your afiair, and not 
theirs is nothing. To tell them, that the loss, if 
any, will fall upon you and not upon them, has very 
little weight. They argue, th t, they being the 
real doers, ought to be the best judges of the mod€ 
of doing. And, indeed, in most cases, they are, and 
go about their work with wonderful skill and 
judgment. But, then, it is difficult to induce them 
cordially to do any thing new ; or any old thing in a 
nezv way ; and the abler they are as workmen, the 
more untractabie they are, and the more difficult to 
be persuaded, that any one knows any thing, relating 
to farming affairs, better than they do. It was this 
difficulty that made me resort to the employment 
of young women in the most important part of my 
farming, the providing of immense quantities of 
cattle-food. But, I do not find this difficulty here, 
where no workmen are obstinate, and where, too, 
all one's neighbours rejoice at one^s success, which is 
by no means the case amongst the farmers in 
England. 

87. Having now given instructions relative to 
the business of transplanting of the Ruta Baga, let 
us see, whether it be not preferable to either the 
ridge-sowing method, or to the broad-cast method. 

88. In the first place, when the seed is sown on 
the ground where the plants are to come to per- 
fection, the ground, as we have seen in Paragraph 
40 and Paragraph 47, must be prepared early in 
June, at the latest ; but, in the transplanting me- 
thod, this work may be put oif, if need be 'till 



100 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

early in August, as we have seen in Paragraphs 74 
and 75. However, the best time for transplanting 
is about the 26th of July, and this cjives a month 
for preparation of land, more than is allowed in the 
sowing methods. This, of itself, is a great matter ; 
but, there are others of far greater importance. 

89. This transplanted crop may follow another 
crop on the same land. Early cabbages will loave 
and be away ; early peas will be ripe and off ; 
nay, even wheat, and all grain, except buck- 
wheat, may be succeeded by Ruta Baga trans- 
planted. I had crops to succeed Potatoes, Kidney- 
Beans, White Peas, Onions, and even Indian Corn^ 
gathered to eat green ; and, the reader will please 
to bear in mind, that I did not sow, or plant, any 
of my ^rsi crops, just mentioned, 'till the month 
of June. What might a man do, then, who is in 
a state to begin with his first crops as soon as he 
pleases ! Who has his land all in order, and his 
manure ready to be applied ! 

90. Another great advantage of the Ir^insplant- 
ing method is, that it saves almost tne whole of 
the after culture. There is no hoeing ; no thin- 
ning of the plants ; and not more than one plough- 
ing between the ridges. This is a great conside- 
ration, and should always be thought of, when we 
are talking of the trouble of transplanting. The 
turnips which I have mentioned in Paragraphs 72 
and 73 had no after culture of any sort ; for they 
soon spread the ground over with their leaves ; 
and, indeed, after July very few weeds made their 
appearance. The season for their coming up is 
passed ; and, as every farmer well knows, if there 
be no weeds up at the end of July, very few will 
come that summer. 

91. Another advantage of the transplanting me- 
thod is, that you are sure that you have your right 
number of plants, and those regularly placed. 
For, in spite of all you can do in sowing, there 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 101 

will be deiiciencies and irregularities. The seed 
may not come up, in some places. The plants 
may, in some places, be destroyed in their iniant 
state. They may, now and then, be cut off with 
the hoe. The best plants may sometimes be cut 
up and the inferior plants left to grow. And, in 
the broad-cast niethod, the irregularity and uncer- 
tainty must be obvious to every one. None of 
these injurious consequences can arise in the 
transplanting method. Here, when the work is 
once well done, the crop is certain, and all cares 
are at an end. 

92. In taking my leave of this part of my trea- 
tise, I must observe, that it is useless, and, indeed, 
unjust, for any man to expect success, unless ho. 
attend to the thing himself, at least 'till he has made 
the matter perfectly familiar to his work-people. 
To neglect any part of the business is, in flict, to 
neglect the whole ; just as much as neglecting to 
put up one of the sides of a building, is to neglect 
the whole building. Were it a matter of trifling 
moment, personal attention might be dispensed 
with ; but, as I shall, I think, clearly show, this 
is a matter of very great moment to every farmer. 
The object is, not merely to get roots, but to get 
them of a large size ; for, as I shall show, there 
is an amazing difference in this. And, large 
roots are not to be gotten without care, which, by 
the bye, costs nothing. Besides, the care bestow- 
ed in obtaining this crop, removes all the million 
of cares and vexations of the winter and spring 
months, when bleatings everlasting din the farmer 
almost out of his senses, and make him ready to 
knock the brains out of the clamorous flock, when 
he ought to feel pleasure in the filling of their 
bellies. 

93. Having now done with the different modes 
of cropping the ground with Ruta Baga, I will^ 
as I proposed in Paragraph 49, speak about the 
■ 9^ 



102 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

preparation of the land generally ; and in doing 
this, I shall suppose the land to have borne a good 
crop of wheat the preceding year, and, of course, 
to be in good heart, as we call it in England. 

94. I would plough this ground in the fall into 
ridges four feet asunder. The ploughing should 
be very deep, and the ridges well laid up. In 
this situation it would, by the successive frosts 
and thaws be shaken and broken fine as powder 
by March or April. In April, it should be turned 
back ; always ploughing deep, A crop of weed* 
would be well set upon it by the first of June, 
when they should be smothered by another turn- 
ing back. Then, about the third week in June, 
I would carry in my manure, and fling it along in 
the trenches or furrows. After this I would fol- 
low the turning back for the sowing, as is directed 
in Paragraph 50. Now, here Sire four ploughing s. 
And what is the cost of these ploughings ? My 
man, a black man, a native of this island, ploughs 
with his pair of oxen and no driver an acre and a 
half a day^ and his oxen keep their flesh extreme- 
ly well upon the refuse of the Ruta Baga which I 
send to market. What is the cost then ? And, 
what a fine state the ground is thus brought into ! 
A very different thing indeed is it to plough hard 
ground from what it is to plough ground in this fine, 
broken state. Besides, every previous ploughing, 
especially deep ploughing, is equal to a seventh 
part of an ordinary coat of manure. 

95. In the broad-cast method I would give the 
same number of previous ploughings, and at the 
same seasons of the year. I would spread the 
manure over the ground just before I ploughed 
it for sowing. Then, when I ploughed for the \ 
sowing, I would, if I had only one pair of oxen, 
plough about half an acre, harrow the ground, 
sow it immediately, and roll it with a light roller, * 
which a little horse might draw, in order to press i 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 103 

the earth about the seeds and cover them too. — 
There need be no harrowing after soziving. We 
never do it in England. The roller does all very 
completely, and the sowing upon the fresh earth 
will, under any sun, furnish the moisture sufficient. 
I once sowed, on ridges, with a Bennet's drill, 
and neither harrowed nor rolled, nor used any 
means at all of covering the seed ; and yet I had 
plenty of plants and a very fine crop of turnips. 
I sowed a piece of white turnips, broad cast, at 
Hyde Park, last summer, on the eleventh of Au- 
gust, which did very well, though neither har- 
rowed nor rolled after being sown. But, in both 
these cases, there came rain directly after the 
Sowing, which battered down the seeds ; and which 
rain, indeed, it was, which prevented the rolling ; 
for that cannot take place when the ground is wet; 
because, then, the earth will adhere to the roller, 
which will go on growing in size like a rolling 
snow-ball. To harrow after the sowing is sure 
to do mischief. We always bury seeds too deep ; 
and, in the operation of harrowing, more than half 
the seeds of turnips must be destroyed, or ren- 
dered useless. If a seed lies beyond the proper 
depth, it will either remain in a quiescent state^ 
until some movement of the earth bring it up to 
the distance from tke surface, which will make it 
vegetate, or, it will vegetate, and come up later 
than the rest of the plants. It will be feebler also \ 
and it will never be equal to a plant, which has 
come from a seed near the surface. 

96. Before I proceed further, it may not be a- 
miss to say something more respecting the burying 
of seed, though it may here be rather out of place. 
Seeds buried below their proper depth, do not 
come up ; but, many of them are near enough to 
the surface, sometimes, to vegetate, without coming 
up ; and then they die. This is the case, in many 
instances, with more than one half of the seed that 



104 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Paft I. 

is sown. But, if seeds be buried so deep, that 
they do not even vegetate ; then they do not die ; 
and this is one cause, though not the only cause, of 
our wondering to see weeds come up, where we 
are sure, that no seeds have fallen for many years. 
At every digging, or every ploughing, more or less 
of the seeds, that have formerly been buried, come 
up near the surface ; and then they vegetate. I 
have seen many instances in proof of this fact ; but, 
the particular instance, on which I found the posi- 
tiveness of my assertion was one of Parsnip seed. 
It is a very lehcate seed. It will, if beat out, keep 
only 07ie year. 1 had a row of fine seed parsnips 
in my garden, many of the seeds of which fell in 
the gathering. The ground was dug in the fall, 
and, when I saw it full of Parsnips in the spring, I 
only regarded this as a proof, that Parsnips might 
be sown in the fall, though 1 have since proved, that 
that is a very bad practice. The ground was dug 
again, and again, for several successive years ; and 
there was always a crop of Parsnips., without a grain 
of seed ever having been sown on it. But, lest any 
one should take it into his head, that this is a most 
delightful way of saving the trouble of sowing, \ 
ought to state, that the parsnips coming thus at ran- 
dom, gave me a great deal more labour, than the 
same crop would have given me in the regular way 
of sowing. Besides, the fall is not the time to sow, 
as my big and white Parsnips, now seihng in New- 
York market, may clearly show ; seeing that they 
were sown in June ! And yet, people are flocking 
to the IVestern Countries in search of rich land, 
while thousands of acres of such land as I occupy 
are lying waste in Long Island, within three hours' 
drive of the all-consuming and incessantly increasing 
city of New-York ! 

97. I have now spoken of the preparation of the 
land for the reception of seeds. As to the prepara- 
tion in the case of transplantation, it might be just 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 105 

the same as for the sowing on ridges. But, there 
might, in this case, be one more previous ploughing, 
always taking care to plough in dry zvedther^ which 
is an observation I ought to have made before. 

98. But, why should not the plants, in this case, 
succeed some other good crop, as mentioned before ? 
1 sowed some early peas (brought from England) 
on the 2d of June. 1 harvested them, quite ripe 
and hard, on the 31st of July ; and 1 had very fine 
Kuta Baga, some weighing six pounds each, after 
the peas. How little is known of the powers of 
this soil and climate ! My Potatoes were of the 
kidney sort, which, as every one knows, is not an 
early sort. They were planted on the 2d of June ; 
and they were succeeded by a most abundant crop 
of Ruta Baga. And, the manure for the peas and 
potatoes served for the Ruta Baga also. In sur- 
veying my crops and feeling grateful to the kind 
earth and the glorious sun that produce these, to 
me, most delightful objects, how often have 1 turn- 
ed, with an aching heart, towards the ill-treated 
Englishmen, shut up in dungeons by remorseless 
tyrants, while not a word had been uttered in their 
defence by, and while they were receiving not one 
cheering visit or comforting word from, Sir Fran- 
cis BuRDETT, who had been the great immediate 
cause of their incarceration ! 

99. As to the quantity and sort of inanure to be 
used in general, it may be the same as for a sowing 
of Rye, or of Wheat. I should prefer ashes ; but, 
ray large crops in England were on yard-dung, tirst 
thrown into a heap, aiid afterwards turned once or 
twice, in the usual manner as practised in England. 
At Hyde Park I had nothing but Takings up about 
the yard, barn, k.c. as described before. What I 
should do, and what I shall do this year, is, to make 
ashes out of dirt, or earth, of any sort, not very 
stony. Nothing is so eas}^ as this, especially in this 
fine climate. 1 see people go with their wagons 



106 RUTA BACA CVLTURE. Part I. 

five miles for Soper's ashes ; that is to say, spent 
ashes, which they purchase at the landing place 
(for they come to the island in vessels) at the fate 
of about five dollars for forty bushels. Add the 
expense of land-carriage, and the forty bushels do Ij 
not cost less than ten dollars. I am of opinion, • 
that, by the burning of eai^ih, as much manure may 
be got upon the land for half a dollar. I made 
an experiment last summer, which convinces me, 
that, if the spent ashes be received as a gift at three 
■i.iiles distance of Innd-carriage, they are not a gift 
worth accepting of. But, this experiment was upon 
a small scale ; and, therefore, 1 will not now speak 
positively on the subject. 

100. I am now preparing to make a perfect trial 
of these ashes. I have just ploughed up apiece 
of ground, in which, a few years ago, Indian Corn 
was planted, and produced, as I am assured, only 
stalks; and those not more th-dnt-wofeet high. The 
ground has, every year since, borne a crop of 
weeds, rough grass, and briers, or brambles. The 
piece is about t€7i aci-es. I intend to have Indian 
Corn in it ; and, my manure shall be made on the 
spot, and consist of nothing but burnt earth. If I 
have a decent crop of Indian Corn on this land, so 
manured, it will, I think, puzzle my good neigh- 
bours to give a good reason for their going Jive 
miles for spent ashes. 

101. Whether I succeed, or not, I will give an 
account of my experiment. This I knov\', that 1, 
in the year 1815, burnt ashes, in one heap, to the 
amount of about t-wo hundred English cart-loads, 
each load holding about forty bushels. I should not 
suppose, that the burning cost me more than five 
dollars ; and there they were upon the spot, in the 
very field, where they were used. As to their 
effect, I used them for transplanted Ruta Bnga and 
Mangle Wurzle, and they produced full as great an 
effect as the yard-dung used in the same land. This 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. lOT 

process of burning earth into ashes, without suffer- 
ing the smoke to escape, during any part of the pro- 
cess, is a discovery of Irish origin. It was pointed 
out to me by Mr. William Gauntlett of Win- 
chester, late a commissary with the army in Spain. 
To this gentleman I also owe, England owes, and I 
hope America will owe, the best sort of hogs, that, 
I believe, are in the world. I was wholly unac- 
quainted with Mr. Gauntlett, 'till the summer of 
1815, when happening to pass by my farm, he saw 
my hogs, cows, &c. and, when he came to my house 
he called, and told me, that he had observed, that 
I wanted only a good sort of hogs to make my stock 
complete. I thought, that i alrecidy had the finest in 
England ; and I certainly had a very fine breed, 
the father of which, with legs not more than about 
six inches long, weighed, when he was killed, izven- 
ty-seven score, according to our Hampshire mode of 
stating hog meat weight ; ov,Jive hundred, and for- 
ty pounds. This breed has been fashioned by Kt. 
Woods of Woodmancot in Sussex, who has been, I 
believe, more than twenty years about it. I 
thought it perfection itself ; but, I was obliged to 
confess, that Mr. Gauntlett's surpassed it. 

102. Of the earth burning I will give an account 
in my next Part of this work. Nothing is easier 
of performance ; and the materials are every 
where to be found. 

103. I think, that I have now pretty clearly given 
an account of the modes of sowing and planting and 
cultivating the Ruta Baga, and of the preparation 
of the land. It remains for me to speak of the 
time and manner of harvesting, the quantity of the 
crop, and of the uses of, and the mode of applying 
the crop. 



108 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 



Time and manner of harvesting. 

104. This must depend, in some measure, upon 
the age of the turnips ; for, some will have their 
full growth earlier than others ; that is to say, 
those which are sown first, or traisplantediirst, 
will be ripe before those which are sown, or trans- 
planted latest. I have made ample experiments as 
to this matter ; and I will, as in former cases, first 
relate what I did ; and then give my opinion as to 
what ought to be done. 

105. This was a concern in which I could have 
no knowledge last fall, never having seen any 
tarnips harvested in America, and knowing, that, 
as to American /?-os/s, English experience was only 
likely to mislead ; for, in England, we leave the 
roots standing in the ground all the winter, where 
we feed them off with sheep, which scoop them out 
to the very bottom ; or we pull them as we want 
them, and bring them in to give to fatting oxen, to 
cows, or to hogs. I had a great opinion of the 
hardiness of the Ruta Baga, and w^as resolved to try 
it here, and I did try it upon too large a scale. 

106. I began with the piece, the first mentioned 
in Paragraph 46. A part of them were taken up 
on the 13th of December, after we had had some 
pretty hard frosts. The manner of doing the work 
was this. We took up the turnips merely by pull- 
ing them. The greens had been cut off and given 
to cattle before. It required a spade, however, 
just to loosen them along the ridge, into which their 
tap-roots had descended very deeply. We dug 
holes, at convenient distances, of a square form, 
and about a foot deep. We put into each hole a- 
bout fifty bushels of turnips, piling them up above 
the level of the surface of the land, in a sort of 
pyramidical form. When the heap was made, we 
scattered over it about a truss of Rye-Straw, and 



Chap. II. KUTA BAGA CULTUKIl. 109 

threw earth over tlie whole to a thickness of about 
a foot, taking care to point the covering at top, in 
order to keep out wet. 

107. Thus was a small part of the piece put 
up. The 14th of December was a Sunday, a day 
that I can find no Gospel precept for devoting to 
the throwing away of the fruit of one's labours, 
and a day which 1 never will so devote again. 
However, I ought to have been earlier. On the 
Monday it rained. On the Monday night came a 
sharp North-Wester with its usual companion, at 
this season, that is to say, a sharp frost. Resolved 
to finish this piece on that day, I borrov/ed hands 
from my neight)ours, who are always ready to 
assist one another. We had about two acres and 
a half to do ; and it was necessary to employ one 
half of the hands to go before the pullers and loosen 
the turnips with a spade in the frosty ground. 
About ten o'clock, I saw, that we should not finish ^ 
and there was every sign of a hard frost at night. 
In order, therefore, to expedite the work, I called 
in the aid of those efficient fellow labourers, a pair 
of oxen, which, with a good, strong plough, going 
up on one side of each row of turnips, took away 
the earth close to the bulbs, left them bare on one 
side, and thus made it extremely easy to pull them 
up. We wanted spades no longer ; all our hands 
were employed taking up the turnips ; and our 
job, instead of being half done that day, was com- 
pleted by about two o'clock. Well and justly did 
Moses order, that the ox should not be muzzled 
v/hile be was treading out the corn ; for, surely, 
no animals are so useful, so docile, so gentle as 
these, while they require at our hands so little care 
and labour in return ! 

108. Now, it will be observed, that the turnips 
here spoken of, were put up when the ground and 
the turnips were frozen. Yet they have kept per- 
fectly sound and good ; and I am preparing to 

10 



110 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part 1. 

plant some of them for seed. I am now writing on 
the 10th of April. I send off these turnips to 
market every week. The tops and tails and offal 
go to the pigs, to ewes and lambs, to a cow, and 
working oxen, which all feed together upon this 
oifal flung out about the barn-yard, or on the grass 
ground in the orchard. Before they have done, 
they leave not a morsel. But, o^ feeding 1 shall 
speak by and by. 

109. The other crop of turnips, I mean those 
which were transplanted, as mentioned in Para- 
graphs 51 and 52, and which, owing to their being 
planted so late in the summer, kept on grotcijig 
most luxuriantly 'till the very hard frosts came. 

110. We were now got on to the 17th of De- 
cember ; and, 1 had cabbages to put up. Saturday, 
Sunday and Monday, the 21st, 22nd and 23rd, we 
had very hard frost, as the reader, if he live on this 
Island, will well remember. There came a thaw af- 
terwards ; and the transplanted turnips were put up 
like the others ; but, this hard frost had pierced 
them too deeply, especially as they were in so 
tender and luxuriant a state. Many of these we 
iind rotted near the neck ; and, upon the whole, 
they have suffered a loss of about 07ie half An » 
acre, left to take their chance in the field, turned out, I 
like most other games of hazard, a total loss. They ! 
were all rotted. 

111. This loss arose wholly from my want of 
sufficient experience. I was anxious to neglect no 
necessary precaution ; and 1 was fully impressed, 
as I alwaj^s am, with the advantages of being e«r/?/. 
But, early in December, I lost a week at New- 
York ; and, though I worried my neighbours half 
to death to get at a knowledge of the time of the 
hard weather setting in, I could obtain no know- 
ledge, on which I could rely, the several accounts 
being so different from each other. The general 
account ^vas, that there would be no very hard 



Chap. il. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Ill 

wecather 'till after Christmas. I shall know better 
another time ! Major Caktwright says, in speak- 
ing of the tricks of the English Boroughmonger!?, 
at the '■^glorious Revolution," that they will never 
be able to play the saine tricks again ; for, that 
nations, like rational individuals, are not deceived 
ti:soice in the same way. 

112. Thus have I spoken of the time and manner 
of harvesting as the}'^ took place with me. And, 
surely, the expense is a mere trifle. Two oxen 
and four men would harvest two acres in any clear 
day in the latter end of November ; and thus is thi>s 
immense crop harvested and covered completely foe 
about tzvo dollars and a half an acre. It is astonish 
ing, that this is never done in England ! For, though 
it is generally said, that the Ruta Baga will stand any 
weather ; I know by experience, that it v/ill not 
stand any weather. The winter of the year, 1814 ; 
that is to say, the months of January and February, 
were very cold, and a great deal of snow fell ; and, 
in a piece of twelve acres, I had, in the month of 
March, two thirds of the turnips completely rotten ; 
and these were amongst the finest that 1 ever grew, 
many of them weighing twelve pounds each. Be- 
sides, when taken up in dry weather, before the 
freezings and thawings begin, the dirt all falls off; 
and the bulbs are clean and nice to be given to 
cattle or sheep in the stalls or yards. For, though 
we, in general feed off these roots upon the land 
with sheep, we cannot, in deep land, always do it. 
The land is too wet; and particularly for Ewes and 
tambs, which are, in such cases, brought into a 
piece of pasture land, or into a fold-yard, where the 
turnips are flung down to them in a dirty state, 
just carted from the field. And, again, the land is 
very much injured, and the labour augmented, by 
carting when the ground is a sort of mud-heap, or 
rather, pool. All these inconveniences and inju- 
ries would bo avoided by harvesting in a dry day 



112 P.UT A BACA CULTURE. Part J 

In November, if such a day should, b}^ any accident. 
])e found in England ; but, why not do the work in 
October, and so'.v wheat, at once, in the land .' 
More on this after cropping another time. 

113. In Long Island, and throughout the United 
States, where the weather is so fme in the fall : 
■vvhere every day, from the middle of October to 
the end of November, (except a rainy day about 
once in 16 days) is as fair as the fairest May-day 
in England, and where such a tiling as a zcater- 
f arrow in a field was never heard of; in such a 
-oil as this, and under such a climate as this, there 
never can arise an}^ difficulty in the way of the 
harvesting of turnips in the proper time. 1 should 
certainly do it in JS^ovember ; for, as we have seen, 
A\ little frost does not affect the bulbs at all. I 
ivould put them in when perfectly dry ; make my 
heaps of about fifty bushels ; and, when the frost 
approached, I mean the hard frosts, I would cover 
with corn-stalks, or straw, or cedar boughs, as 
many of the heaps as I thought I should want in 
January and February; for, these coverings would 
so break the frost, as to enable me to open the 
heaps in those severe months. It is useless and 
inconvenient to take into barns, or out-houses, a 
very large quantity at a time. Besides, if left un- 
covered, the very hard frosts will do them harm. 
To be sure, this is easily prevented, in the barn, 
by throwing a little straw over the heap ; but, 
being, by the means that I have pointed out, al- 
ways kept ready in the field, to bring in a larger 
quantity than is used in a week, or thereabouts, 
would be wholly unnecessary, besides being trou- 
blesome from the great space, which would thus 
be occupied. 

* -114. It is a great advantage in the cultivation of 
this crop, that the sowing, or transplanting time, 
comes after all the spring grain and the Indian 
Corn are safe in the ground, and before the harvest 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 113 

of grain begins ; and then again, in the fall, the 
taking up of the roots conies after the grain and 
corn and buckwheat harvests, and even after the 
sowing of the winter grain. In short, it seems 
to me, that the cultivation of this crop, in this 
country, comes, as it were expressly, to till up the 
unemployed spaces of the farmer's time ; but, if 
he prefer standing with his arms folded, during 
these spaces of time, and hearing his flock bleat 
themselves half to death in March and April, or 
have no flock, and scarcely any cattle or hogs, 
raise a few loads of yard-dung, and travel five 
miles for ashes and bu}'^ them dear at the end of 
the live miles ; if he prefer these, then, certainly, 
I shall have written on this subject in vain. 



Quantity of the Crop. 

115. It is impossible for me to say, at present, 
what quantity of Ruta Baga may be grown on an 
acre of land in this island. My three acres of 
ridged Turnips, sown on the 2Gth of June were 
very unequal ; but, upon one of the acres, there 
were six himdred and forty bushels; I mean heaped 
bushels ; that is to say, an English statute Bushel 
heaped as long as the commodity will lie on. 
The transplanted Turnips yielded about four hun- 
dred bushels to the acre : but, then, observe, they 
were put in a full month too late. This year, I 
shall make a fair trial. 

116. I have given an account of my raising, 
upon five acres in one field, and twelve acres in 
another field, one thousand three hundred and 
twenty bushels to an acre, throughout the seven- 
teen acres. I have no doubt of equaUing that 
quantity on this Island, and that, too, upon some 
of its poorest and most exhausted land. They tell 

10* 



114 RUTA BIG A CULTURE. PiUt I. 

me, indeed, that the last summer was a remarkably 
fine summer ; so they said at Botley, when I had 
my first prodigious crop of Ruta Baga. This is 
the case in all the pursuits of life. The moment 
a man excels those, who ought to ce able and 
v/illing to do as well as he ; that moment, otliers 
set to work to discover causes for his success 
other than those proceeding from himself. But, 
as I used to tell my neighbours at Botley, " You 
*'have had the same seasons that I have had. No- 
" thing is so impartial as weather.'- As long as 
this sort of observation, or inquiry, proceeds from 
a spirit of emulation, it may be treated with great 
indulgence ; but, when it discovers a spirit of envy, 
it becomes detestable, and especially in affairs of 
agriculture, where the appeal is made to our com- 
mon parent, and where no man's success can 
be injurious to his neighbour, while it must be a 
benefit to his country, or the country in which 
the success takes place. I must, however, say, 
and I say it with feelings of great pleasure, as 
well as from a sense of justice, that I have ob- 
served in the American farmers no envy of the 
Ivind alluded to ; but, on the contrary, the greatest 
satisfaction, at my success ; and not the least back- 
wardness, but great forvv'ardness, to applaud and 
admire m}^ mode of cultivating these crops. Not 
so, in England, where the farmers (^generally the 
most stupid as well as most slavish and most 
churlish part of the nation) envy all who excel 
them, while they are too obstinate to profit from 
the example of those whom they en\j. I say 
generally ; for there are many most honourable 
exceptions ; and, it is amongst that class of men, 
that I have my dearest and most esteemed friends ; 
men of knowledge, of experience, of integrity, 
and of pubhc-spirit, equal to that of the best of 
Englishmen in the worst times of oppression. I 
would not exchange the friendship of one of the^o 



Chap II. RUTA BAG A CULTURE. 115 

men for that of all the Lords that ever were cre- 
ated, though there are some of them very able 
and upright men too. 

117. Then, if 1 may be suffered to digress a lit- 
tle further here, there exists, in England, an in- 
stitution which has caused a sort oi identity of agri- 
culture with politics. The Board of Agriculture, 
established by Pitt for the purpose of sending spies 
about the countr}^, under the guise of agricultural 
surveyors, in order to learn the cast of men's poli- 
tics as well as the taxable capacities of their farms 
and property ; this Board gives no premium or 
praise to any but " loyal farmers," who are gene- 
rail}^ the greatest fools. I, for my part, have ne- 
ver had any communication with it. It was always 
an object of ridicule and contempt with me ; but, 
I know this to be the rule of that body, which is, 
in fact, only a little twig of the vast tree of Cor- 
ruption, which stunts and bhghts and blasts all 
that approaches its poisoned purlieu. This Board 
has for its Secretary, Mr. Artkur Young, a man of 
great talents, bribed from his good principles, by 
this place of five hundred pounds a year. But, 
Mr. YouN^G, though a most able man, is not al- 
ways to be trusted. He is a bold asserter ; and 
very few of his statements proceed upon actual 
experiments. And, as to what this Board h^s pub- 
lished^ at the public expense, under the name of 
Communv'cations, I defy the v»'orld to match it as a 
mass of illiterate, unintelligible, and useless trash. 
The only paper, published by this Board, that I 
ever thought worth keeping, was an account of the 
produce from a single cow, communicated by Mr. 
Cramp, the jail-keeper of the County of Sussex ; 
which contained very interesting and wonderful 
facts, properly authenticated, and stated in a clear 
manner. 

118. Arthur Young is blind, and never attends 
the Board. Indeed, sorrowful to relate, he is be- 



116 RUTA EAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

come a religious fanatic, and this in so desperate a 
degree as to leave no hope of any possible cure. 
In the pride of our health and strength, of mind as 
well as of body, we little dream of the chances and 
changes of old age. Who can read the " Travels 
in France, Spain, and Italy,'''' and reflect on the pre- 
sent state of the admirable writer's mind, without 
feehng some diflidence as to what may happen to 
himself! 

119. Lord Hardwicke, who is now the Presi- 
dent of the Board, is a man, not exceeding my ne- 
gro, either in experience or natural abihties. A 
parcel of court-sycophants are the Vice-Presidents. 
Their Committees and Correspondents are a set of 
Justices of the Peace, Nabobs become Country-Gen- 
tlemen, and Parsons of the worst description. And 
thus is this a mere political job ; a channel for the 
squandering of some thousands a year of the peo- 
ple's money upon worthless men, who ought to be 
working in the fields, or mending " His Majesty's 
•'High Ways." 

120. Happily politics, in this country, have no- 
thing to do with agriculture ; and here, therefore, 
I think 1 have a chance to be fi\irly heard. I should, 
indeed, have been heard in England ; but, I really 
could never bring myself to do any thing tending 
to improve the estates of the oppressors of my 
country ; and the same consideration now restrains 
nie from communicating information, on the subject 
of timber trees, which would be of immense bene- 
fit to England ; and which information 1 shall re- 
serve, 'till their tyranny shall be at an end. Cas- 
tiereagh, in the fulness of his stupidity, proposed, 
that in order to find employment for " the popula- 
tion,'''' as he insolentlj^ called the people of England, 
said, that he would set them to dig holes one day 
and fill them up the next. I could tell him what to 
pla7it in the holes so as to benefit the country in an 
immense degree : but, like the human body in 



Chap. If. RVTA BAGA CULTURE. 117 

some complaints, the nation wonJd ncv/ be really 
injured by the communication of what, if it were in 
a healthy state, v>^culd do it good, and add to its 
strength and to all its merms of exertion. 

121. To return from this digression, I am afraid 
ofv.'o bad sea307is. The drought, which is the great 
enemy to be dreaded in this country, I am quite 
prepared for. Giv^e me ground that i can plough 
ten or twelv e inches deep, and give me Indian Cora 
spaces to plough in, and no sun can burn me up, 
I have mentioned Mr. Curwen's experiments be- 
fore ; or, rather Tull's. For, he it is, who made 
all the discoveries of this kind. Let an}'^ man, just 
to tr}, leave half a rod of ground undng from the 
month of May to that of October ; and another half 
rod let him dig and break fine ever}'^ ten or tifteen 
days. Then, whenever there has been fifteen or 
twenty days of good scorching snn, let him go and 
dig a bole in each. If he does not tmd the hard 
s:Toi!nd dry as dust, and the other mcist ; then let 
him say, that I know nothing about these matters. 
So erroneous is the common notion, that ploughing 
in dry Tceather lets in the drought ! 

122. Of course, proceeding upon this fact, which 
I state as the result of numerous experiments, I 
should, if visited with long droughts, give one or two 
additional ploughings between the crops when 
growing. That is all ; and, with this, in Long 
Island, I defy all droughts. 

123. But, why need I insist upon this effect of 
ploughing in dry weather ? Why need I insist on it 
in an Indian Corn country ? Who has not seen 
fields of Indian Corn looking, to-day, yellow and 
sickW, and, in four days hence (the weather being 
dry all the while,) looking green and flourishing ; 
and this wonderful effect produced merely by the 
plough? Why, then, should not the same effect 
alwa3^s proceed from the same cause '? The deeper 
von plough the greater the effect, hov/cver : for 



118 RUTA BAGA CfLTURE. Part L 

there is a greater body of earth to exhale from, 
and to receive back the tribute of the atmosphere. 
Mr. CuRWEN tells us of a piece of cattle-cabbage. 
In a very dry time in July, they looked so yellow 
and blue, that he almost despaired of them. He 
sent in his ploughs ; and a gentleman, who had 
seen them when the ploughs went in on the Mon- 
day, could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw 
them on the next Saturday, though it had continued 
dry all the week. 

124. To perform these summer ploughings, in 
this Island, is really nothing. The earth is so light 
and in such fine order, and so easily displaced and 
replaced. I used one horse for the purpose last 
summer, and a very slight horse indeed. An ox is, 
however, better for this work ; and this may be 
accomplished by the use of a collar' and two traces, 
or by a single yoke and two traces. Tull recom- 
mends the latter ; and I shall try it for Indian Corn 
as well as for Turnips.* Horses, if they are strong 

* Since the above paragi-aph was written, I have made a 
Single Ox-Yoke ; and, I find it answer excellently well. Now, 
my work is much shortened ; for in forming ridges, two Oxen 
are awkward. They occupy a wide space, and one of them 
is obliged to walk upon the ploughed land, which, besides 
making the ridge unev-^en at the top, presses the ground, which 
is injurious. For ploughing between the rows of Turnips and 
of Indian Corn also, what a great convenience this will be ! 
An ox goes steadier than a horse, and will plough deeper Avith- 
out fretting and tearing ; and he wants neither harness^naker 
noYgrooju. The plan of my yoke I took from Tull. I showed 
it to my workman, who chopped off the limb of a tree, and 
made the yoke in a.n hour. It is a piece of wood, with two 
holes to receive two ropes, about three quarters of an inch in 
diameter. These traces are fastened in the yoke merely by a 
knot, which prevents the ends from passing through the holes, 
while the other ends are fastened to the two ends of a Wif- 
Jle-tree, as it is called in Long Island, of a Wipple-tree as it is 
called in Kent, and of a Wippance as it is called in Hamp^ 
shire. I am but a poor draftsman ; but, if the printer can find 
any thing to make the representation Avith, the following draft 
will clearly show what I have meant to describe in words. 
>Vhen the Corn (Indian) and Turnips gel to a size, sufficient 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTLTIE. 



119 



enough, are not so steady as oxen, which are more 
patient also, and with which you may send the 
plough-share donDii without any of the fretting and 
unequal pulling, or jerking, that you have to en- 
counter with horses. And, as to the slow pace of 
the ox, it is the old story of the tortoise and the 
hare. If I had known in England, of the use of 
oxen, what I have been taught upon Long Island, 
I might have saved myself some hundreds of pounds 
a year. I ought to have followed Tull in this as 
in all other parts of his manner of cultivating land. 
But, in our country, it is difficult to get a plough- 
man to look at an ox. In this Island the thing is 
done so completely and so easily, that it was, to me, 
quite wonderful to behold. To see one of these 
Long-Islanders going into the field, or orchard, at 
sun rise, with his yoke in his hand, call his oxen 

to attract the appetite of the ox, you have only to put on a 
muzzle. This is what Mr. Tull did ; for, though we ought 
not to muzzle the ox " as he treadeth out the coin," we may 
do it, even for his own sake, amongst other consideration?;, 
when he is assisting us to bring the ci'op to perfection. 




L^ J 



120 KUTA BAGA CULTUBL. Part 1 . 

by name to come arid put their necks under the yoke, 
drive them before him to his plough, just hitch a 
hook on to the ring of the yoke, and then, without 
any thing except a single chain and the yoke, with 
no reins, no halters, no traces, no bridle, no dri- 
ver, set on to plough, and plough a goodacre and a 
lialf in the day ; to see this would make an English 
farmer stare ; and well it might, when he looked 
back to the ceremonious and expensive business of 
keeping and managing a plough-team in England. 

125. These are the means, which I would, and 
which I shall, use to protect my crops against the 
effects of a dry season. So that, as every one has 
the same means at his command, no one need be 
afraid of drought. It is a bright plough-share that 
it alwa3rs wanted much more than showers. With 
this culture there is no fear of a crop ; and thougli 
it amount to only tive hundred bushels on an acre, 
what crop is /mi/' so valuable. 

126. The bulk of crop, however, in the broad- 
r.ast, or random, method, may be materially affect- 
ed by drought ; for, in that case, the plough can- 
not come to supply the place of showers. The 
ground there will be dry and keep dry in a dry 
time ; as in the case of the supposed half rod of 
undug ground in the garden. The weeds, too, will 
come and help, by their roots, to suck the moisture 
out of the ground. As to the hand-hoeings, they 
may keep down weeds to be sure, and they raise a 
t ^iHing portion of exhalation ; but, it is trifling in- 
deed. Dry weather, if of long continuation, makes 
the leaves become of a bluish colour; and, when 
this is once the case, all the rain and all the tine 
weather in the world will never make the crop a 
good one ; because the plough cannot move amidst 
this scene of endless irregularity. This is one of 
the chief reasons why the ridge method is best. 



Chap. li. RUT A BAG A CULTURE. 121 



Uses of and mode of applying^ the crop. 

127. It is harder to say, what uses this root 
may nothe put, than what uses it inay be put to, in 
the feeding of animals. They are eaten greedily 
by sheep, horn cattle, and hogs, in their raw state. 
Boiled or steamed (which is better) no dog that I 
ever saw, will refuse it. Poultry of all sons will 
live upon it in its cooked state. Some dogs will 
even eat if raw ; a fact that I first became acquaint- 
ed with by perceiving my Shepherd's dog eating 
it in the field along with the sheep. 1 have two 
Spaniels that come into the barn and eat it raw ; 
and yet they are both in fine condition. Some 
horses will nearly live upon it in the raw state 5 
others are not so fond of it. 

128. Let me give an account of what I am doing 
now (in the month of April) with my crop. 

129. it is not pretended, that this root, measure 
for measure, is equal to Indian Corn in the ear. 
Therefore, as I can get Indian Corn in the ear for 
half a dollar a bushel, and, as I sell my Ruta Baga 
for half a dollar a bushel at New- York, I am very 
sparing of the use of the latter for animals. In- 
deed, i use none at home, except such as have 
been injured, as above-mentioned, by the delay in 
the harvesting. These damaged roots 1 apply in 
the following manner. 

130. Twice a da}'^ 1 take about two bushels, and 
scatter them about upon the grass for fifteen Ewes 
with their lambs and a few wether sheep, and for 
seven stout store-pigs, which eat with them. Once 
a day 1 fling out a parcel of the refuse that have 
been cut from the roots sent to market, along with 
cabbage leaves, and stems, parsnip fibres, and the 
like. Here the working oxen, hogs, cow, sheep 
and fowls, all feed as they please. All these ani- 
mals are in excellent condition. The cow has ?io 

11 



122 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part f. 

other food ; the working oxen a lock of hay twice 
a day ; the Ewes an ear of Indian Corn each ; the 
pigs nothing but the roots : the fowls and ducks 
and turkeys are never fed in any other way, though 
they know how to feed themselves whenever there 
is any thing good to be found above ground. 

131. I am weanijig some pigs, which, as every 
one knows, is an affair of milk and meal. I have 
neither. I give about three buckets of boiled Ruta 
Baga to seven pigs every day, not having any con- 
venience for steaming ; and two baits of Indian Corn 
in the ear. And, with this diet, increasing the 
quantity with the growth of the pigs, I expect to 
turn them out of the stye fatter (if that be possible) 
than they entered it. Now, if this be so, every 
farmer will say, that this is what never was done be- 
fore in America. We all know how important a 
thing it is to tl^•e«?^ a pig well. Any body can wean 
them without inilk and meal ; but, then the pigs are 
good for nothing. They remain three months after- 
wards and never grow an inch ; and they are, in- 
deed, not worth having. To have milk, you must 
have cows, and cows are vast consumers ! To have 
cows, you must have /ema/e labour, which, in Ame- 
rica, is a very precious commodity. You cannot 
have meal without sharing in kind prett}^ liberally 
with the miller, besides bestowing labour, however 
busy you may be, to carry the corn to mill and 
bring the meal back. I am, however, speaking 
here of the pigs from m}^ English breed ; though i 
am far from supposing that the common pigs might 
not be weaned in the same way. . 

132. Sows with young pigs I feed thus : boiled 
Ruta Baga twice a day. About three ears of In- 
dian Corn a piece twice a day. As much offal Ru- 
ta Baga raw as they will eat. Amongst this boiled 
Ruta Baga, the pot-liquor of the house goes, of 
course ; but, then, the dogs, ! dare say, take care, 
that the best shall fall to their lot : and as there are 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 123 

four of them pretty fit, their share cannot be very 
small. Every one knows, what good food, how 
mjch meal and iailk are necessary to sows which 
have pigs. I have no milk, for my cow has not 
3'et calved. And, then, what a chance concern this 
is ; for, the sows may perversely have pigs at the 
time when the cows do not please to give milk ; or, 
rather, when they, poor things, without any fault 
of theirs, are permitted to go dry, which never 
need be, and never ought to be the case. I had 
a cow once that made more than two pounds of but- 
ter during the week, and had a calf on the Saturday 
night. Cows always ought to be milked to the very 
day of their calving, and during the whole of the 
time of their suckling their calves. But, " suffi- 
cient unto the day is the evil thereof" Let ue 
leave this matter 'till another time. Having, how- 
ever, accidentally mentioned cows, 1 will just ob- 
serve, that, in the little publication of Mr. Cramp, 
mentioned above, as having been printed by the 
Board of Agriculture, it was stated, and the proof 
given, that his single cow gave him, clear profit, for 
several successive years, more than fifty pounds 
sterling a year, or upwards of two hundred and twen- 
ty dollars. This was clear profit ; reckoning the 
food and labour, and taking credit for the calf, the 
butter, and for the skim milk at a penny a quart 
only. Mr. Cramp's was a Sussex cow. Mine were 
of the Alderny breed. Little, small boned things ; 
but, two of my cows, fed upon three quarters of an 
acre of grass ground, in the middle of my shrubbery, 
and fastened to pins in the ground, which were 
shifted twice a day, made three hundred pounds of 
butter from the 28th of March to the 27th of June. 
This is a finer country for cattle than England 5 and 
yet, what do 1 see ! 

133. This difficulty about feeding sows with 
young pigs and weaning pigs, is one of the greatest 
of hinderances to improvement ; for, after all, what 



IS4 KUTA BAG A CULTURE. Part I. 

animal produces flesh meat like the hog ? Applica- 
ble to all uses, either fresh or salted, is the meat. 
Good in all its various shapes. The animal killa- 
ble at all ages. Quickly fiiited. Good if half fat. 
Capal^le of supporting an immense burden of fat. 
Demanding but little space for its accommodation ; 
and yet, if grain and corn and milk are to be their 
principal food, during their lives, they cannot mul- 
tiply very fast ; because many upon a farm cannot 
be kept to much prolit. But, if, by providing a 
sufficiency of Ruta Baga, a hundred pigs could be 
raised upon a farm in a year, and carried on 'till 
latting time, they would be worth, when ready to 
go into the fatting st3^1e, fifteen dollars each. This 
would be something worth attending to ; and, the 
farm must become rich from the manure. The Ru- 
ta Baga, taken out of the heaps early in April, will 
keep well and sound all the summer ; and, with a 
run in an orchard, or in any grassy place, it will 
keep a good sort of hog always in a very thriving 
andeven^es% state. 

134. 'i his root, being called aiurnip, is regarded 
as a turnip, as a common turnip, than which nothing 
can be much less resembling it. The common 
turnip is a very poor thing. The poorest of all 
roots of the bulb kind, cultivated in the fields ; 
and, the Ruta Baga, all taken together, is, perhaps, 
the very best. It loses none of its good qualities 
by being long kept, though drj^ all the while. A 
neighbour of mine in Hampshire, having saved a 
large piece of Ruta Baga for Seed, and having, 
after harvesting the seed, accidentally thrown some 
of the roots into his yard, saw his hogs eat these 
old roots, which had borne the seed. He gave 
them some more, and saw that they eat them gree- 
dily. Hp, therefore, went and bought a wliole 
drove, in number about forty, of lean pigs of a good 
large size, brought them into his yard, carted in 
the roots of his seed Ruta Baga ; and, without having 



Chap. If. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 125 

given the pigs a handful of any other sort of food, 
sold out his pigs as fat porkers. And, indeed, it is a 
fact well known, that sheep and cattle as well as hogs 
will thrive upon this root after it has borne seed, 
which is what, I believe, can be said of no other 
root or plant. 

135. When we feed oif our Ruta Baga in the 
fields, in England, by sheep, there are small parts 
left by the sheep ; the shells which they have left 
after scooping out the pulp of the bulb ; the tap 
root ; and other little bits. These are pecked out 
of the ground ; and when washed by the rain, 
other sheep follow and live upon these. Or, in 
default of other sheep, hogs or cattle are turned in 
in dry weather, and they leave not a morsel. 

136. Nor are the greens to be forgotten. In 
England, they are generally eaten by the sheep, 
when these are turned in upon them. When the 
roots are taken up for uses at the home-stead, the 
greens are given to store pigs and lean cattle. I 
cut mine oif, while the roots were in the ground, 
and gave them to fatting cattle upon grass land 
alternately with Indian Corn in the ear ; and, in 
this way, they are easily and most profitably ap- 
plied, and they come, too, just after the grass is 
gone from the pastures. An acre produces about 
four good wagon loads of greens ; and they are 
taken off fresh and fresh as they are wanted, and, 
at the same time, the roots are thus made ready 
for going, at once, into the heaps. Pigs, sheep, 
cattle ; all like the greens as well as they do the 
roots. Try any of them with the greens of White 
Turnips ; and, if they touch them, they will have 
changed their natures, or at least, their tastes. 

137. The Mangle Wurzle, the Cabbage, the 
Carrot, and the Parsnip, are all useful ; and, the 
latter^ that is to say, the Parsnip, very valuable 
indeed ; but, the main cattle-crop is the Ruta 
Baga. Even the White Turnip, if well cultivated , 

11* 



120 RUT A BAG A CULTURE. Part I 

may be of great use ; and, as it admits of beina: 
sown later, it may often be very desirable to raise 
it. But, reserving myself to speak fully, in a 
future part of my work, of m}' experiments as to 
these crops, I shall now make a short inquiry as 
to the value of a crop of Ruta Baga, compared 
with the value of any other crop. I will just 
observe, in this place, however, that 1 have grown 
^finer carrots, parsnips and Mangle Wurzle, and 
even finer cabbages, than I ever grew upon the 
richest land in Hampshire, though not a seed of 
any of them was put into the ground 'till the month 
of June. 

138. A good mode, it appears to me, of making 
my proposed comparative estimate, will be to say, 
ho-w I would proceed, supposing me to have a farm 
of my own in this Island, of only one hundred 
acres. If there were not twelve acres of orchard, 
near the house, I would throw as much grass land 
to the orchard as would make up the twelve acres, 
which I would fence in in an effectual manner, 
against small pigs as well as large oxen. 

139. Having done this, I would take care to 
have fifteen acres of good Indian Corn, well plant- 
ed, well suckered and well tilled in all respects. 
Good, deep ploughing between the plants would 
give me forty bushels of shelled corn to an acre ; 
and a ton to the acre of fodder for my four work- 
ing oxen and three cows and my sheep and hogs, 
of which I shall speak presently. 

140. I would have twelve acres of Ruta Baga, 
three acres of Early Cabbages, an acre of Mangle 
Wurzle, an acre of Carrots and Parsnips, and as 
many AVhite Turnips as would grow between my 
rows of Indian Corn after my last ploughing of 
that crop. 

141. With these crops, which would occu- 
py thirty-two acres of ground, I should not fear 
.being able to keep a good house in all sorts of 



J 



Chap.' II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 127 

meat, together with butter and milk, and to send 
to Market nine quarters of beef Jind three hides, 
a hundred early fat lambs, a hundred hogs, weigh- 
ing twelve score, as we call it in Hampshire, or 
two hundred and forty pounds each, and a hun- 
dred fat ewes. These, all together, would amount 
to about three thousand dollars, exclusive of the 
cost of a hundred Ewes and of three Oxen ; and, 
I should hope, that the produce of my trees in 
the orchard and of the other fifty-six acres of my 
farm would pay the rent and the labour ; for, as 
to taxes, the amount is not worth naming, espe- 
cially after the sublime spectacle of that sort, 
which the world beholds in England. 

142. I am, you will perceive, not making any 
account of the price of Ruta Baga, Cabbages, Car- 
rots, Parsnips, and White Turnips at Kew-York^ 
or any other market. I now, indeed, sell carrots 
and parsnips at three quarters of a dollar the 
hundred by tale ; cabbages (of last fall) at about 
three dollars a hundred, and White Turnips at a 
quarter of a dollar a bushel. When this can be 
done, and the distance is within twenty or thirty 
miles on the best road in the world, it will, of 
course, be done ; but, my calculations are built 
upon a supposed consumption of the whole upon 
the farm by animals of one sort or another. 

143. My feeding would be nearly as follows. I 
will begin with February ; for, until then the Ptuta 
Baga does not come to its sweetest taste. It is like 
an apple, that must have time to ripen ; but, then^ 
it retains its goodness much longer- I have proved, 
and especially in the feeding of hogs, that the Ruta 
Baga is never so good, 'till it arrives at a mature 
»tate. In February, and about the first of that 
month, I should begin bringing in my Ruta Baga, 
in the manner before described. My three oxen, 
which would have been brought forward by other 
food to be spoken of by and by, would be tied up ii> 



128 RUTA BACA CULTURE. Part f. 

a stall , looking into one of those fine commodious 
barns'-lloors which we have upon this island. Their 
stall should be warm, and they should be kept well 
littered, and cleaned out frequently. The Ruta Ba- 
ga, just chopped into large pieces with a spade or 
shovel, and tossed into the manger to the oxen at 
the rate of about two bushels a day to each ox, 
would make them completely fat, without the akl of 
corn, hay, or any other thing. I should, probably, 
kill one ox at Christmas, and, in that case, he must 
have had a longer time than the others upon other 
food. If I killed one of the two remaining oxen in 
the middle of March and the other on the first of 
May, they would consume 266 bushels of Ruta 



144. My hundred Ewes would begin upon Ruta 
Baga at the same time, and, as my grass ground 
would be only twelve acres until after hay-time, I 
shall suppose them to be fed on this root till July, 
and they will always eat it and thrive upon it. 
They will eat about 8 pounds each, a day ; so that, 
for 150 days it would require a hundred and twen- 
ty thousand pounds weight, or two thousand four 
hundred bushels. 

145. Fourteen breeding sows to be kept all the 
year round, would bring a hundred pigs in the 
Spring, and they and their pigs would, during the 
same 150 days, consume much about the same quan- 
tity ; for though the pigs would be small during 
these 150 days, yet they eat a great deal more than 
a sheep in proportion to their size, or, rather bulk. 
However, as they would eat very little dtiring 60 
da3^s of their age, I have rather over-rated their 
consumption. 

146. Three cows and four working oxen would, 
during the 150 days consume about one thousand 
bushels, which, indeed, would be more than suffi- 
cient, because, during a great part of the time, 
they would more than half live upon Corn stalks : 



Chap II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 129 

and, indeed, this, t5 a certain extent would be the 
case with the sheep. However, as I mean that 
every thing should be of a good size, and live well, 
I make ample provision. 

147. 1 should want, then, to vpAseflve hundred 
bushels of Ruta Baga upon each of my twelve 
acres ; and, why should 1 not do it, seeing that I 
have this year raised six hundred and forty bushels 
upon an acre, under circumstances such as 1 have 
stated them. 1 lay it down, therefore, that, with a 
culture as good as tbat of Indian Corn, any man 
may, on this Island (where Corn will grow) have 
500 bushels to the acre. 

148. I am now come to the first of July. My 
Oxen are fatted and disposed of. My Lambs are 
gone to market, the last of them, a month ago. 
My pigs are weaned and of a good size. And now 
my Ruta Baga is gone. But, my Ewes, kept well 
through the winter, will soon be fat upon the 12 
acres of orchard and the hay ground, aided by my 
three acres of early cabbages, which are now fit to 
begin cutting, or, rather, pulling up. The weight 
of this crop may be made very great indeed. Ten 
thousand plants will stand upon an acre, in four feet 
ridges, and every plant ought to weigh three pounds 
at least. 1 have shown before how advantageous- 
ly R-uta Baga transplanted would follow these 
cabbages, all through the months of July, and Au- 
gust. But, what a crop of Buckzi^heat would fol- 
low such of the cabbages as came off in Jtdy ! My 
Cabbages, together with my hay fields and grain 
fields after Harvest, and about 40 or 50 wagon 
loads of Ruta Baga greens, would carry me along 
well 'till December (the cabbages being planted at 
different times); for my Ewes would be sold fat in 
July, and my pigs would be only increasing in de- 
mand for food ; and the new hundred Ewes need 
not, and ought not, to be kept so well as if they 
were fatting, or had lambs by their side. 



1 30 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 

149. From the first of December to the first of 
February, Mangle VVurzle and White Turnips 
would keep the sheep and cattle and breeding sows 
plentifully ; for the latter will live well upon 
Mangle Wurzle ; and my hundred hogs, intended 
for fatting would be much more than half idi upon 
the carrots and parsnips. I should, however, 
more probably, keep my parsnips 'till spring, and 
mix the feeding with carrots with the feeding with 
corn, for the first month, or fifteen days, with re- 
gard to the fatting hogs. None of these hogs would 
require more than three bushels of corn each to 
finish them completely. My other three hundred 
bushels would be for sows giving suck ; for the 
Ewes, now and then in wet weather ; and for other 
occasional purposes. 

130. Thus all my hay and oats and wheat and 
rye might be sold, leaving me the straw for litter. 
These, surely, would pay the rent and the labour ; 
and, if I am told, that I have taken no account of the 
mutton and lamb and pork that my house would de- 
mand, neither have I taken any account of a hun- 
dred summer pigs, which the fourteen sows would 
have, and which would hardly fail to bring two hun- 
dred dollars. Poultry demand some food; but, 
three parts of their raising consists of care ; and, 
if I had nobody in my house to bestow this care, I 
should, of course, have the less number of mouths 
to feed. 

151. But, my horses. Will not they swallow my 
hay and my oats ? No : for 1 want no horses. But, 
am I never to take a ride, then ? Ay, but, if I do, 
I have no right to lay the expense of it to the ac- 
count of the farm. I am speaking of how a man 
may live by and upon a farm. If a merchant spend 
a thousand a year, and gain a thousand, does he 
say, that his traffick has gained him nothing ? When 
men lose money hy farming, as they call it, they for- 
get, that itisnotthe/anmwo-, but other expenses that 
take away their money. It is, in fact, they that 



Chap. II. RUTA RAGA CULTURE. 131 

rob the farm, and not the farm them. Horses may 
be kept for the purpose of going to church, or to 
meeting, or to pay visits. In many cases this may 
be not only convenient, but necessary, to a family ; 
but, upon this island, I am very sure, that it is 
neither convenient nor necessary to a farm. 
" What !" the ladies will say, " would you have us 
"to be shut up at home all our lives ; or be drag- 
''ged about by oxen." By no means; not 1! I 
should be very sorry to be thought the author of 
any such advice. 1 have no sort of objection to the 
keeping of horses upon a farm ; but, 1 do insist 
upon it, that all the food and manual labour requir- 
ed by such horses, ought to be considered as so 
much taken from the clear profits of the farm. 

152. I have made sheep, and particularly lambs ^ 
a part of my supposed stock ; but, 1 do not know, 
that I should keep any beyond what might be 
useful for my house. Hogs are the most profita- 
ble stock, if you have a large quantity of the food 
that they will thrive on. They are foid feeders ; 
but they will eat nothing that is poor in its nature ; 
that is to say, they will not thrive on it. They are 
the most able tasters in all the creation ; and, that 
which they like best, you may be quite sure has 
the greatest proportion of nutritious matter in it, 
from a White Turnip to a piece of beef. They 
will prefer meat to corn, and cooked meat to raw ; 
they will leave parsnips for corn or grain ; they 
will leave carrots for parsnips ; they will leave 
Ptuta Baga for carrots ; they will leave cabbages 
for Ruta Baga ; they will leave Mangle Wnrzle 
for cabbages ; they will leave potatoes (both being 
raw) for Mangle Wurzle, A White turnip they 
will not touch, unless they be on the point of 
starving. They are the best of triers. Whatever 
thii^y prefer is sure to be the richest thing within 
their reach. The parsnip is, by many degrees, 
the richest root ; but, the seed lies long in the 



132 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part 1, 

ground ; the sowing and after culture are works of 
gre.it niceness. The crop is large with good cul- 
tivation ; but, as a main crop, I prefer the Ruta 
Baga, of which the crop is immense, and the har- 
vesting and preserving and application of which are 
so easy. 

153. The farm I suppose to be in fair condition to 
start with. The usual grass seeds sown, and so 
forth, and every farmer will see, that, under my 
system, it must soon become rich as any garden 
need to be, without my sending men and horses to 
the water side to fetch ashes, which have been 
brought from Boston, or Charleston, an average 
distance of seven hundred miles ! in short, my 
stock would give me. in one shape or another, ma- 
nure to the amount in utility of more than a thou- 
sand tons weight a year of common yard manure. 
This would be ten tons to an acre every year The 
farm would, in this way become more and more 
productive ; and, as to its being too rich, I see no 
danger of that ; for a broad-cast crop of wheat will, 
at any time, tame it pretty sufficiently. 

154. Very much, in my opinion, do those mis- 
take the matter, who strive to get a great breadth 
of land, with the idea, that, when they have tired 
one held, they can let it lie, and go to another. It 
is better to have one acre of good crop, than two of 
bad or indifferent. If the one acre can, by double 
the manure and double the labour in tillage, be made 
to produce as much as two other acres, the one acre 
is preferable, because it requires only half as much 
fencing, and little more than half as much harvest- 
ing, as two acres. There is many a ten acres of 
land near London, that produce more than any com- 
mon farm of two hundred acres. My garden of 
three quarters of an acre produced more, in value, 
last summer, from June to December, than any ten 
acres of oat land upon Longlsland, though I there 
saw as fine tields of oats as I ever saw in my life. — 



Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTUP.E. 133 

A heavy crop upon all the grottnd that 1 piJt n ploag^i 
into is what I shoukl seek, rather than to h;ive a 
great quantity of land. 

155. The business of carting manure from a 
distance can, in very few, if any cases, answer a 
profitable purpose. If any man would giv€ m-e 
even horse dung at the stable door, four miles from 
my land, I would not accept of it, on conditioii of 
fetching it. I say the same of spent ashes. To 
manure a field often acres, in this waj^ a man and 
two horses must be employed twenty days at least, 
with twenty days wear and tear of wagon and tackle. 
Two oxen and two men do the business in two days, 
if the manure be on the spot. 

156. In concluding my remarks on the subject of 
Ruta Baga, I have^to apologize for the desuUor}^ 
manner in which I have treated the matter ; but, 
I have put the thoughts down as they occurred to 
me, without much time for arrangement, wishing 
very much to get this first part in tlie hands of the 
public before the arrival of the time for the sowing of 
Ruta Baga this present year. In the succeeding parts 
of the work, I propose to treat of the culture of 
every other plant that i have found to be of use up- 
on a farm ; and also to speak fully of the sorts of 
cattle, sheep, and hogs, particularly the latter. My 
experiments are now going on ; and, I shall only 
have to communicate the result, which I shall do 
very faithfully, and with as much clearness as 1 am 
able. In the meanwhile, 1 shall be glad to afford 
an opportunity, to any persons who may think it 
worth while to come to Hyde Park, of seeing how 
I proceed. 1 have just now (17th April) planted 
out my Ruta Baga, Cabbages, Mangle Wurzle, 
Onions, Parsnips, &c. for seed. 1 shall begin my 
earth burning in about fifteen days. In short, being 
convinced, that I am able to communicate very valu- 
able experiments ; and not knowing how short, or 
how long, my stay in America may be, I wish very 

14888 195 



134 RVTA BAGA CULTURE. Pait. I. 

much to leave behind me whatever of good I am 
able, in return for the protection, which America 
has afforded me against the fangs of the Borough- 
mongers of England ; to which country, however, 
I always bear affection, which 1 cannot feel towards 
any other in the same degree, and the prosperity 
and honour of which I shall, I hope, never cease 
to prefer before the gratification of all private plea- 
sures and emoluments. 



End of the Treatise on Ruta Baga and of Part I. 



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